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BARBARA PICKS A HUSBAND 



THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 

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MACMILLAN & CO., Limited 

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BARBARA 
PICKS A HUSBAND 

A COMEDY IN NARRATIVE 


BY 


HERMANN HAGEDORN 


I 


y 

FRONTISPIECE BY 
J. PAUL VERREES 


jQeto gotfe 

THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
1918 

All rights reserved 



COPTBIGHT, 1918 

By the MACMILLAN COMPANY 


Set up and electrotyped. Published, June, 1918 • 


JUN 26 1918 


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TO 

EIGHT SISTERS 

A 

MOTHER-IN-LAW 
AND AN 

ADOPTED GRANDMOTHER 
IN WONDER, RESPECT AND 
AFFECTION 



BARBARA PICKS A HUSBAND 


I 

T here was something wrong with the dinner-party, 
no question. 

It wasn’t the dinner. That had proceeded from the 
subterranean cave of AH Baba and the Forty Thieves, 
as Mrs. Collingwood’s now departed husband had once, 
during a domestic upheaval, dubbed Mrs. Collingwood’s 
kitchen ; and therefore was as perfect as Mrs. Colling- 
wood’s masterly mind could conceive and Ali Baba, superb, 
eloquent, and lately from Paris, could execute. It moved 
along quietly and without a hitch from appetizer and 
oysters to nuts and demi-tasse, served in silence and — 
here was the trouble — nibbled at by the ladies and de- 
voured by the young men with a weak attempt at conver- 
sation which was worse than silence. By the time the 
soup was cold in Barbara Collingwood’s plate, the igno- 
minious failure of her dinner-party was imminent. 

Barbara glanced through a rosy forest of candles and 
shades at her mother. But Mrs. Collingwood, in her calm 
and austere beauty, was looking into space, while she pre- 
tended to listen to the over-gallant gabble of little Chester 
Howell, who never doubted that he was giving her a 
memorable time. 

Barbara bit her lip. Her mother had disapproved of 
the party from the first. But why couldn’t she be a sport 
and help to make it something other than an utter gloom? 
There was indubitably a hard streak in her mother, she 
said to herself, a strain of iron-ribbed self-righteousness 
come down to her from her New England ancestors. 
Barbara turned to the neighbor on her right. His 


BARBARA PICKS A HUSBAND 


name was Cleve Winsor, and a month ago she had never 
laid eyes on him and had heard only that he was an estab- 
lished misogynist (at twenty-four) after a career, begin- 
ning at sixteen, which had brought him a reputation that 
could be discussed only in whispers and the dark. Her 
arm tingled and the blood stole over her face as she 
touched the sleeve of his dress-coat in an effort to save a 
candle-shade from the destruction by fire which for a mo- 
ment threatened it. She wanted to ask Cleve Winsor 
about his birth,, his education, his family, his views on life, 
death and immortality, on votes for women, feminism, 
psychical research, Strindberg and the novels of Robert 
W. Chambers. But what she did ask was : “ Don’t you 

wish the war would be over soon? ” 

He replied with what was in that second year of the 
Great War already beginning to be the obvious reply. 
Peace was very desirable, of course, but he hoped there 
would be no peace before Germany was definitely crushed, 
and so forth. 

Little Chester Howell, who had a German mother whom 
he adored, went up into the air at this in his own absurd, 
attractive way which everybody loved. Brilliantly, and 
not sparing Barbara Collingwood’s right-hand neighbor 
in his denunciation of the Great American Public, “ echo- 
ing like empty-headed parrots the pompous eloquence of 
fatuous old college presidents and unpatriotic editorial- 
writers bought with English gold,” he rose to the defense 
of the Fatherland. He had the gift of speech, and the 
fact that he stuttered occasionally so that the words 
seemed to fall over each other for a minute like clowns in 
a circus, merely added to the impression of ardent, over- 
whelming sincerity. 

‘‘ Isn’t he a duck? ” whispered a round-faced, baby-eyed 
young lady, whose name was Delia, to the rather grave 
young man who sat next to her, and who, when necessary, 
answered to the name of Tom Par&way. 


BARBARA PICKS A HUSBAND 


8 


The young man smiled faintly. “ Look out, Delia. 
He’s probably carrying a bomb.” 

Delia gave a squeak of delicious fright. Oh, do you 
think he’ll poison the salad ” 

Chester caught the remark and, not being blessed with 
a sense of humor, launched into an occasionally impeded 
torrent of impassioned discourse on anti-German hysteria. 
Every one was fascinated. The dinner-party was saved. 
Barbara blessed Chester Howell and thought him the clev- 
erest of mortals, for all his dear literalness. And then 
Mrs. Collingwood spoke. 

“ I think all the nations are just in a class with thieves 
and murderers,” she said in her emphatic way. “ It’s just 
the Devil in them, and I don’t understand how any sane 
person can honestly defend any of them.” 

That was the end, of course. Barbara tried to heal the 
breach with a quick laugh. “ What perfect neutrality ! ” 
she exclaimed to the table in general, in tones which did 
not entirely hide her vexation. “ Don’t you think mother 
ought to put herself on exhibition ? ” 

The remark was not kind, and Mrs. Collingwood leaned 
forward with a faint, quizzical smile, and drew toward her 
a saltcellar which she had no intention of using. Tom 
Paraway, at Barbara’s left, felt sorry for her and sorrier 
that Barbara had lost her temper again. 

But, indeed, the provocation was not small. Conversa- 
tion died without hope. 

For there was no debating a dictum of Mrs. Col- 
lingwood’s. There was too much depth of feeling behind 
it, too much passionate conviction. She was, it seems, an 
indomitable pacifist, opposed to the use of force between 
nations as between individuals. And when she saw a 
child abused, threatened or struck, strong men could 
scarcely hold her back from immediate, reckless assault. 
Illogical.^ So much the worse for logic. No one, being 
granted omnipotence for an hour, would have wanted to 


4 


BARBARA PICKS A HUSBAND 


make any changes in Mrs. CoUingwood. No one, that is, 
with the exception of Barbara. 

Chester Howell made no attempt to combat the sweep- 
ing denunciation of his hostess, but sank back into his 
chair with an expression on his wrinkled forehead and 
around the corners of his queer, flat nose, comically like 
that of a rubber rooster suddenly deflated, wondering 
whether Mrs. Collingwood (on whom he rather wanted to 
make an impression) thought him more dishonest than 
insane or more insane than dishonest. Tom Paraway, 
remembering his own frivolous remark, felt as though he 
had been caught batting balls with a crucifix. Cleve Win- 
sor thanked his stars that he had been merely obvious. 
Delia giggled. Ruth Torrey, slender, delicate, lily-like, 
looked unhappy. But Barbara was clenching her hands 
under the table. The dinner-party was gone. 

The dinner would have gone to pieces sooner or later in 
any event, for it happened that the three men present 
were all in love with the same girl. Barbara had had her 
own devilish ideas in bringing together at one table the man 
who had been in love with her since her childhood — that 
was Tom; the man who had been rushing her frantically 
since the beginning of this, her second season — that was 
Chester Howell ; and this new Lochinvar from Minnesota, 
whose slightest touch made the blood creep up her cheeks 
and whose look made her dizzy. 

The fatal combination had been no blundering accident. 
Not very many things were accidental with Barbara. 
The dinner-party had been carefully thought out in 
the silence of her soul, and then decreed. She desired, of 
course to impress. Whom she wanted most to impress she 
herself did not know — her mother, possibly ; Delia and 
Ruth without question ; and, of course, the three young 
men, but which of the three the most of all she could not 
quite decide. 

Here lay the germ of trouble, and Barbara knew it. 


BARBARA PICKS A HUSBAND 


5 


She was clear-eyed and she had imagination. She knew 
as well as she knew anything that she would be married 
within a year or less. Women seem to know those things 
by virtue of that gift which Man respectfully, and not 
without a certain helpless fear, calls “ intuition,” and 
science, the cold-blooded, calls something else. Delia 
would have greeted such a prospect for herself with a 
shout, without worrying overmuch concerning the identity 
of her victim, for she was not exacting. But Barbara was 
very exacting. What she had to give possibly exercised 
her mind less than what she expected to receive. She 
rated herself high. The man she married must be success- 
ful, rich, absolutely devoted to her, absolutely true to her, 
romantic but not jealous, heroic (if possible), interested 
somewhat but not too deeply in literature, a good hand at 
bridge and at tennis, a perfect dancer and conversa- 
tionalist, one always to be proud of, yet always secure 
on the leash, a combination of a Crown Prince and a pet 
Pom. 

Barbara, pretending to eat her sweetbreads, told her- 
self that in a year, garbed in some exquisite and yet un- 
imagined dressing-gown, she would be having breakfasts 
alone with one of these three young men now munching 
nuts like squirrels about this formal table. And with a 
touch of terror at her heart she wondered which it 
would be. 

The dinner dragged on its weary way through course 
after course, and topic after topic of lifeless conversation. 
Everybody was bored, Barbara could see clearly enough ; 
and worse, everybody seemed sinking, minute by minute, 
out of sight in a quicksand of indigo blues. With the 
exception of Chester Howell’s, there was scarcely a voice 
that dared to raise itself above a whisper. Tom and 
Young Lochinvar exchanged cold, thoughtful glances; 
Mrs. Collingwood answered questions courteously, but 
otherwise seemed tongue-tied ; Delia chattered in low tones 


6 


BARBARA PICKS A HUSBAND 


to Chester when he was not holding forth on one of a dozen 
things he cared nothing about; and Ruth, torn between 
affection and the ache of a bitter jealousy no one would 
have suspected her of hiding behind that lily -Like face, 
looked sleepless about the eyes and ready for tears. The 
First and Second Butlers moved about with conscious 
mournfulness, like ushers at a funeral. 

Contrary to the expectations of the diners, the elaborate 
meal came to an end at last. The Second Butler whis- 
pered something in the ear of the First Butler, and the 
First Butler bore the intelligence to Mrs. Collingwood as 
though aware of its serious import. The theater-bus was 
waiting. The ladies rustled charmingly upstairs and down 
again for cloaks and scarfs; and Chester Howell, impres- 
sionable and twenty-two, gave a sigh for the good old 
days of polygamy. 

He stood at the door as Barbara passed out, his face 
flushed with enthusiasm, his tan-colored eyes lit with a 
fire he made no attempt to conceal. You’re wonderful ! ” 
he whispered. “ I’m crazy mad about you ! ” 

She laughed tantalizingly, lifting her chin and giving 
him a swift glance that might mean everything or nothing 
at all, according to the vanity of the recipient. 

Chester gasped ardently; but at that moment Tom 
Paraway touched Barbara’s elbow and helped her down the 
stoop. “ You need some sleep, old girl,” he whispered. 

She shrugged her shoulders. “ Don’t be a gloom, Tom. 
Isn’t this party festive enough without your playing 
grandpa? ” 

“ That’s all right,” he answered cheerfully. “ Grandpa 
has his uses.” 

She hummed a half dozen notes impatiently, but the 
humming ceased of a sudden, for Cleve Winsor was stand- 
ing at the door of the bus. She gave him a quick flashing 
smile that seemed to light fires in his rather expressionless 
eyes. He held her arm firmly as she entered the car, and 


BARBARA PICKS A HUSBAND 


7 


for a second she hesitated on the step and swayed a little, 
suddenly faint. His strong hand pushed her gently for- 
ward. She sank down at the farther end of the bus, 
struggling to control her quick breathing. 


II 


T he performance was all that the members of Mrs. 

Collingwood’s box-party expected of it. To Delia 
every new comic opera was a new vital experience, furnish- 
ing fresh glimpses of dazzling ecstasy. She welcomed 
every joke as though it were the first that Adam had 
cracked, and she were Eve, and this were Paradise. The 
music excited her. The indiscriminate love-making 
seemed to her thrillingly romantic. 

Every one else expected to be bored, and was not dis- 
appointed. To Barbara comic operas were a part of the 
social system, to be endured as gracefully as one endured 
receptions and bridge and similar matters which one 
might conceivably dispense with if one were free to choose. 
To enjoy them as frankly as Delia enjoyed them was vul- 
gar; to call them the stupid inanities that they were was 
“ high-brow.” One accepted them as a matter of course, 
as a well-bred person accepted everything from sin to 
canvas-back duck. Ruth, who was conscientious, thought 
of the wasted time and of her father, alone at home; 
answering distantly and half-heartedly the frivolous re- 
marks which Chester Howell, seeing Barbara absorbed in 
Cleve Winsor, chose to address to her. 

Mrs. Collingwood sat in the rear of the box with 
Tom Paraway, uncomplainingly enduring. They were ex- 
cellent friends, for all Mrs. Collingwood’s forty-five years 
and Tom Paraway’s twenty-five; and they had a tacit 
understanding that Barbara was to be allowed to have her 
fling, but that they two would stand on guard and see 
that no harm should come to her. 

This resolve entailed hardships ; for Barbara, who could 
8 


BARBARA PICKS A HUSBAND 


sleep aU day when she so wished, was a spendthrift of the 
nocturnal hours; and Tom’s day began relentlessly at 
seven. He had been well-trained in endurance, however, 
by an unflinching father and a clever mother who, through 
a quarter century of happy union with inflexibility had 
been forced to achieve a certain measure of smiling endur- 
ance herself. So Tom bore up on whatever sleep he could 
get, grew a bit hoUow in the cheeks, and clung on — not 
desperately, for despair was not in the family lexicon, 
but with a calm persistence which at times irritated Bar- 
bara to the point of sharp speech. He had proposed to 
her, off and on, for seven years — he seemed to remember 
that he had begun proposing at eighteen, though the 
thing had become such a habit since, that, as with most 
habits, its early history had become blurred in his mind. 

He had proposed to her for the latest time at five-thirty 
that afternooji. It struck him that her refusal bore a 
new sincerity about it ; wherefore he did not record it with 
Mrs. Collingwood, as his playful custom was. 

From the rear of the box, he glared at the silly per- 
formance, where wish-wash alternated only with vulgarity, 
jingling, jangling on through illimitable deserts of tawdry 
trash. He wondered for what particular sins he was 
being punished. 

Barbara watched the stage, but he could see that she 
was happily unconscious of what was going on there. She 
was listening to the discourse of Young Lochinvar, who 
was leaning so close to her that his forehead now and 
again touched a stray wisp of her hair, silhouetted against 
the brightness of the stage. 

Tom gritted his teeth, and rapidly mated the proverbial 
two and two. It was a month ago that Barbara had 
been bridesmaid at a wedding in Minneapolis. It was the 
evening following her return that she had given him what 
had been up to that time her most emphatic “ No.” Cleve 
Winsor was from Minneapolis. 


10 


BARBARA PICKS A HUSBAND 


He brought the man’s face before his mental vision — 
the popular-fiction lines, the “ straight nose, square chin ” 
and so forth, which could be called “ clear-cut ” only by a 
stretch of the romantic fancy that ignored the unmis- 
takable marks of weakness and self-indulgence. 

Tom Paraway’s heart sank a little. He could make 
up his mind to be a good loser, if necessary, but, for other 
reasons than his own happiness, he did not like to think of 
yielding the prize to this frontispiece hero, sitting with 
arms folded — quite in the approved fashion of heroes — 
a little behind the left shoulder of his lady. He suspected 
that living with Cleve Winsor might prove a difficult 
business for a proud, exacting, slightly vain, delicate, 
high-strung creature like Barbara. Of course, living with 
Barbara would be no sinecure. He himself was willing 
to take the risk, seeing the perils clearly, and, therefore, 
not utterly imprepared. Living with any one in holy wed- 
lock was difficult, he surmised. 

Mrs. Collingwood was sitting beside him with eyes closed. 
Her face seemed extraordinarily noble to him in its finely 
chiseled repose. He would have said that her ancestors 
had been well established in New York while it was yet 
Nieuw Amsterdam, if he had not known that the farm in 
Connecticut was only one generation behind her. 

Slowly and a little wearily Mrs. Collingwood opened her 
eyes. It was possible that Barbara was an even greater 
strain on her than on any of the young lady’s devoted 
admirers. 

You’ve been asleep,” said Tom accusingly. 

She laughed a low, rippling laugh, very pleasant to 
hear, though it ended in a curious note of defiance, as 
though she were telling herself, “ I will laugh, and nothing 
is going to make me believe that I don’t want to.” 

She leaned back over her chair, speaking in low tones. 

I was just thinking,” she said. “ That is all. Do you 
know, I find these hours in the evening really a relief. At 


BARBARA PICKS A HUSBAND 


11 


home there’s always something to do, a meal to order or a 
letter to write, or an argument with Barbara.” She 
laughed again, not altogether mirthfully. ‘‘ But I can’t 
bring a telephone or a desk along with me to a box-party, 
so I use the time in setting my inner house in order. I 
don’t find the music distracting. It seems unreal, and 
after the first three minutes I don’t believe I even hear it.” 

‘‘ You’re rather wonderful,” he said simply. 

She laughed again, and this time the laugh was hard and 
metallic. “ Oh, heavens ! Barbara has shown me up to 
myself.” 

“ Exactly how do you figure that.^ ” 

“ There has been something all wrong with me, or she 
would never have taken to the flesh-pots the way she has. 
Every new comic opera we go to seems to me a punishment 
for my sins and a screeching indictment of her bringing 
up. Imagine my mother letting me listen to stuff like 
that. But that isn’t all. Imagine my mother bringing 
me up to be able to endure it, not to say like it. She 
didn’t, and I loathe it. And I tried to bring up my 
daughter conscientiously, and she insists on having a box 
at every comic opera that comes to the city. And I 
can’t bring myself to use coercion. And there you are.” 
She tried again to laugh, but with no more success than 
before. 

Tom Paraway stared thoughtfully over the heads of 
Barbara and her satellites into the dim and boisterous 
auditorium. “ You know what I think about Barbara,” 
he said quietly. “ And I think you take the fluffy ruffles 
part of her too seriously.” 

“ That’s all she’ll ever show me.” There was a flash 
of resentment in her tones. 

“ I wonder whether she doesn’t enjoy showing you 
what she thinks you’re looking for? ” 

‘‘ I don’t know. But I feel absolutely in her way. She 
knows I disapprove of her. And she doesn’t seem to care. 


12 


BARBARA PICKS A HUSBAND 


And I can’t help feeling every hour of the day and night 
that she’s at the edge of an abyss and may fall over any 
minute.” 

I guess you both need sleep,” said Tom in his grand- 
fatherly way. 

Perfectly absurd, as far as I’m concerned,” she ex- 
claimed. “ But you do. You’re wearing yourself out, 
Tom. Why do you do it? You’re too good for her. 
Don’t waste your best years on a heartless flirt like Bar- 
bara. There are plenty of fine girls in the world.” 

Tom laughed softly. Fire away,” he said. I think 
you’re a designing mother. You’re just trying to make 
me sit tight. You know as well as I do that you couldn’t 
pry me away with a crowbar.” 

Mrs. Collingwood laughed so whole-heartedly at that, 
that Barbara heard her above the clashing cymbals of the 
Finale and turned half round over the back of her chair. 
“ Cheers ! ” she said. ‘‘ Mother’s laughed at a comic 
opera. What do you know? ” 

The laugh died out in a wistful look of pain which only 
Tom Paraway saw. The next instant Mrs. Collingwood 
was up on her feet directing with friendly decisiveness the 
bundling up of three charming young ladies, expensively, 
but not over heavily clad. 

“ Wasn’t it wonderful? ” cried Delia. 

They all lied, agreeing that it was, no one considering 
the issue worth an argument ; as indeed it wasn’t. 

Mrs. Collingwood drew the line at a supper-party dan- 
sant at ‘‘ The Green Umbrella,” declaring that she was not 
going to be even partially responsible for anybody’s ner- 
vous prostration, and emphatically advising bed as the 
next destination. Ruth squeezed her arm gratefully and 
Tom Paraway inconspicuously patted her left shoulder- 
blade. Barbara was frankly annoyed and Delia nigh to 
tears, but Mrs. Collingwood pressed her lips quietly to- 


BARBARA PICKS A HUSBAND 13 

gether and herself gave the chauffeur directions. She did 
not believe in coercion, but there were limits to license. 

They dropped Ruth and Delia as near their respective 
beds as the curb allowed; then drove to Fifty-seventh 
Street. The men made their adieux at the top of the 
stoop. 

“ Won’t you come in and have a bite.^ ” said Barbara, 
being able at the moment to think of nothing that would 
annoy her mother more. 

Tom Paraway spoke quickly to forestall acceptance by 
either of the others. “Me for bed,” he said genially. 
“ Good night. Come along, Chet. You’ll lose your 
beauty sleep, and God knows you need every help of that 
sort you can get.” 

Chester Howell cursed him inwardly, but followed his 
lead ; Winsor likewise. The three walked together toward 
Fifth Avenue, but at the corner, Winsor, slipping his 
hands into the pockets of his overcoat, suddenly stopped 
and announced that he had left his gloves at the Col- 
lingwoods’. 

“ Wait a second,” he said. “ I’ll just get them.” 

“ Oh, buy another pair,” said Tom. 

“ Hate to. I’m broke,” Winsor answered. “ Just wait 
here. Won’t be a minute.” He was off. 

“ Some bird,” remarked Tom as the figure sped west- 
ward. 

“ I’m thirsty,” Chester confessed. “ Let’s have some- 
thing.” 

“ No, thanks.” 

“ You don’t want to wait for him.^ ” 

Tom was still watching a rapidly moving figure. It 
was ascending the Collingwood stoop now. “ I certainly 
do.” 

“ Do you think — they’re engaged.? ” 

“ No.’’ 


14 


BARBARA PICKS A HUSBAND 


“ Do you think — there’s — any danger? ” 

« Yes.” 

“ I’m thirsty. Come on.” 

« No.” 

‘‘ You don’t expect to stay here all night, do you? ” 

« No.” 

“ I want a gin fizz.” 

I’m not a bar-keeper.” 

« Come on!” 

‘‘ No ! ” 

“ Good heavens ! How long do you expect to stay ? ” 
That depends on the amount of nerve our young 
hero brought along from Minnesota. I bet on forty-five 
minutes.” 

“ Are you going to murder him when he comes out ? ” 

“ No.” 

What the deuce are you going to do ? ” 

“ Go to bed.” 

I am thirsty, Tom,” Chester remarked plaintively. 
“ And it’s immoral to drink alone.” 

Get a soda.” 

“ It isn’t that kind of a thirst.” 

Five minutes gone.” 

“ Forty to wait ? ” 

“ More or less.” 

‘‘ Lord!” 

They waited together with increasing grimness. 


Ill 


I N the Collingwood mansion, meanwhile, there was war. 

The three young men had descended the stoop. The 
front door was closed. 

Barbara did not stop to divest herself of her wrap 
before firing the first gun. ‘‘ Mother, you are the limit,” 
she said. 

Mrs. Collingwood’s face clouded, but she did not lose 
her composure. She was standing on the lowest step of 
the stairs, with one hand on the newel-post, a queenly 
figure against the dull ivory of the woodwork and the 
soft sea-green of the stair-carpet. ‘‘ What have I done 
now.? ” she asked quietly. 

“ You know perfectly well. At dinner. Everything 
was going finely, when you had to burst in. I wish you’d 
learn that a dinner-party isn’t a missionary meeting. 
Nobody cares about the rights or wrongs of things at a 
dinner-party. People just want to have a good time. If 
you are going to disagree with a person at a dinner-party, 
you’ve got to disagree in a way that’s going to pump 
new life into the talk, not kill it. But you are always 
so nobly earnest that when you’re through talking there’s 
not enough left of the conversation to bury.” 

There were red spots in Barbara’s cheeks, and her 
lips, never too full at best, disappeared almost completely 
in the sharp, determined line that was her mouth. There 
was no question of the earnestness behind this lecture. 
But then, as Barbara would have been the first to explain, 
this was not a dinner-party. This was merely the open- 
ing round of the evening bout, which would continue, ae- 

15 


16 


BARBARA PICKS A HUSBAND 


cording to the endurance of the contestants, until one, 
two or three o’clock, when exhaustion and tears would 
ring the final bell. 

“ I am sorry, Barbara,” Mrs. Collingwood was saying. 
“ But I can’t help my convictions.” 

“ You don’t understand. It isn’t your convictions. 
It’s the way you hit people on the head with them.” 

Perfectly absurd ! ” 

“ Not a bit. You do. You don’t leave a hair. You’re 
a perfect gloom.” 

Mrs. Collingwood twisted her lips, and bit them. 
There were tears in her eyes, and she did not answer at 
once for fear lest her voice should quaver. At heart, Mrs. 
Collingwood was apprehensive of the judgment this 
modern, self-possessed, young lady might pronounce on 
her own old-fashioned and not always controllable emo- 
tions. When she spoke, her voice was colder than she 
meant to make it. 

“ You know I don’t approve of a good many of the 
things you insist on doing. The shallowness and futility 
of the life we have been leading these past two years seem 
absolutely immoral to me.” 

‘‘ You’re extreme. You see things just your way. 
You’re not broad-minded. You see everything from the 
standpoint of a moral problem. But nine times out of 
ten there’s no question of morality, either way. You just 
make yourself miserable. You were brought up horribly 
strictly, so you don’t understand. Going around the way 
I do isn’t futile, it’s just the opposite. It’s broadening — 
and — and it’s giving me the kind of a good time I want.” 
She lifted her chin sharply. 

If you call this evening — a good time — ” exclaimed 
Mrs. Collingwood, starting to ascend the stairs. 

“ I don’t,” Barbara retorted quickly. But it might 
have been.” 

The door-bell rang. 


BARBARA PICKS A HUSBAND 17 

‘‘For heaven’s sake! It’s after midnight. Who can 
it be? ” This from the younger lady. 

The older, true to form, lost no time in speculations, 
but crossed swiftly to the door, and opened it. 

“ Why — ” she ejaculated, frankly amazed. 

Barbara, behind the door, turned to peek through the 
crack of the hinges. 

“ I hope I didn’t scare you,” said the familiar voice. 
“ I think I left my gloves — ” 

Barbara felt her knees suddenly weaken and a hot tidal 
wave rush to her head. 

“ Why, it’s too bad you had to bother to come back,” 
said Mrs. Collingwood, sympathetically. She would have 
given the Devil himself the benefit of the doubt. 

“ I knew you wouldn’t have gone up yet, so I 
thought — ” 

Young Lochinvar was in the hall now, with the frosty 
night shut out behind him. Speaking in the loose jargon 
of the street, he was emphatically a handsome man, and 
even the critical — Tom Paraway, for instance — found 
difficulty in proving that he was anything else. He had 
heigh th and breadth (and possibly thickness, but that is 
irrelevant here) ; great physical strength, without ques- 
tion; hair, without stint, dark straight hair; a heavy 
neck; and a reposeful, challenging face that gave women 
the creeps and made them say and do foolish things in 
spite of resolutions. From which feature the Devil 
operated most effectively was a question debated not infre- 
quently by the victims within and among themselves. 
The mouth, slightly drooping to almost imperceptible de- 
pressions at the corners, was arresting in its unobtrusive 
insolence ; the eyes, deep-set and heavily shaded by the 
thick eyebrows, were curiously unforgettable. They had 
the glossy brightness and impersonal lure a painter might 
put into the eyes of a faun to give him the final mark of 
the species. 


18 


BARBARA PICKS A HUSBAND 


And looking into this perilous face with undisguised, 
eager delight, was little Barbara CoUingwood, a good foot 
shorter than Young Lochinvar, bright-haired, bright- 
eyed, bright-cheeked, the mouth a little hard and sharp, 
the chin small but unquestionably obstinate; no great 
wealth of hair, but what there was, exquisite as the gold 
spun glass of the Venetians — damp-defying curls, incited 
to careful riot, and not half controlled by the band of tur- 
quoise velvet pretending to keep them where they be- 
longed. Her blue eyes were not large, but vivid and clear. 
If eyes are really windows, giving a suggestion of the in- 
side of the house, a careful observer might have concluded 
that behind these well-washed panes were pleasant rooms, 
furnished with individual taste. A glance at the lips 
might have made him modify his conclusion so far as to 
admit that for the moment, the floors and walls were 
probably littered with garish fandangoes out of harmony 
with the rest of the furniture; and that there were evi- 
dences of hasty comings and goings ; but, on the whole, 
the house was worth inspection. Cleve Winsor evidently 
thought so. 

Barbara turned ostensibly to hunt for the gloves, but 
actually to hide what she feared her cheeks and eyes were 
too frankly revealing. A little revelation was alluring; 
too much was vulgar and, incidentally, poor tactics. She 
did not reason that out ; she knew it by that same old intui- 
tion, which science, the stony-hearted, calls something else. 
She did not find the gloves. She would not have found 
them if they had been there ; and they were in the pocket 
of Cleve Winsor’s overcoat, as that gentleman knew very 
well. Barbara more than suspected that the gloves were 
merely an excuse. She thought them a rather poor one 
until her critical powers an instant later were over- 
whelmed by admiration for the boldness of a lover not 
ashamed to look ridiculous. Through this emotion came 


BARBARA PICKS A HUSBAND 


19 


a flash of regret that Cleve Winsor’s intellectual resources 
were not quite as limitless as his beauty; through this 
again, a hasty flinging out of first-line defenses. 

They all hunted dutifully but without enthusiasm for 
the gloves, Barbara watching her mother furtively, won- 
dering what she was thinking about Cleve Winsor and his 
excuse to achieve the last word, unattended by the glower- 
ing eyes of two other suitors. Mrs. Collingwood gave no 
sign, but her lips were compressed in a way that Barbara 
knew of old, and that meant that there were many things 
which might at the moment be profitably said if Barbara 
were the sort whom anybody’s words could impress ; since, 
however, Barbara seemed able to learn only by her own 
experience, by that experience she must learn. Silence 
might be painful to her mother, but silent she would be. 

Mrs. Collingwood was emphatically silent. 

Cleve Winsor began to wish he were back on Fifth Ave- 
nue with his rivals. In despair, Barbara threw out the 
tentative suggestion that the Second Butler, being a recent 
addition to the household, was not above suspicion. 

It happened that Young Lochinvar knew the dramatic 
value of self-sacrifice. 

I won’t let you blame the butler,” he cried, pulling the 
gloves from his pocket. “ Here they are ! ” 

Barbara felt the blood rush to her face again. She 
wondered whether any^ one would ever break the silence 
that followed. It never occurred to her to break it her- 
self. 

Why — ” exclaimed Mrs. Collingwood, helplessly. 
Then she laughed a little, mirthless laugh which said to 
Barbara, more clearly than words, What do you think 
of your friend now? ” 

Winsor divined what lay behind the laugh. “ Forgive 
me, Mrs. Collingwood,” he said, with charming contrition. 
“ I just had to come back to say good night. I’ve come 


20 


BARBARA PICKS A HUSBAND 


all the way from Minnesota, you know, to see Barbara, and 
seeing her in a crowd doesn’t seem like really seeing her. 
You will forgive me, won’t you? ” 

Mrs. Collingwood looked at him, and felt something in 
her draw back in loathing. She detested smooth words 
always, but behind Cleve Winsor’s was a subtle wooing 
that made her want to scream. 

“ Forgive ! ” she cried, as though the matter were ab- 
surdly out of her domain. “ Don’t ask me to forgive ! 
Barbara’s grown up. She must solve her own problems. 
I try to keep hands off.” 

Barbara looked at her with tight lips and steady, cool 
eyes. “ Do you, though? ” she said to herself. 

The intruder smiled, ingratiatingly. “ Do I constitute 
a problem? ” he asked. 

Mrs. Collingwood looked at him straightly, not uncon- 
scious of the veiled insolence of his manner. Don’t ask 
me,” she said. Barbara will have to settle that.” 

Barbara side-stepped the responsibility with the men- 
dacious assertion that she was ravenously hungry; and 
suggested an invasion of the pantry. Young Lochinvar 
remarked that he did not want to keep the ladies up, to 
which Barbara replied that two in the morning was her 
conservative bedtime, calling on Mrs. Collingwood for 
corroboration. 

‘‘ Come on,” she cried, leading the way to the strong- 
hold of the First and Second Butler. Cleve Winsor fol- 
lowed her through the delicately furnished gray and ivory 
drawing-room, through the dining-room, all mahogany, 
except the floor, into the sequestered pantry. 

Mrs. Collingwood stood motionless a second or two, 
biting her lips in her effort to keep back the tears. As 
usual, the tears were forced to subside even before they had 
reached the rims of her eyes. She turned quickly and went 
upstairs, for fear of making it appear that she thought 
chaperonage necessary; and, being old-fashioned, sat 


BARBARA PICKS A HUSBAND 


21 


down and read again and again all that David, King of 
Israel, had to say concerning the snare of the fowler and 
the noisome pestilence. 

Cleve Winsor, meanwhile, happily unconscious that the 
forces of the Lord were being mustered against him on the 
floor above, proceeded to make love by the directest 
method he knew. He took Barbara into his arms and 
kissed her more times than any one need ever know. 
She gasped and trembled, deliriously happy. He whis- 
pered her name over and over again, kissing her until her 
face seemed to burn ; and a sudden revulsion of feeling 
brought a spring deluge of tears. She struggled to free 
herself, but he would not let her go, whispering that he 
loved her, and that she must marry him and that all his 
life should be hers. 

“ Please let me go,” she said in a voice so quiet, so con- 
trolled that he was deceived into believing that the storm 
was over. 

‘‘ I can’t, I can’t,” he whispered. ‘‘ I’ve just won you. 
How can I let you go ? ” 

He heard her draw in her breath sharply, and a second 
later her hands, which had hung limply at her side, seemed 
to shoot upward between them. He felt the small fists 
pounding against his chest. There was a savage flare 
in her eyes, an uncanny jungle light. He expected any 
instant to feel her fingers on his throat. He released her. 

She staggered backward a step on two against the sink, 
and for what seemed a long time, they stood staring at 
each other, breathing heavily. The light feU fuU on her 
face, and he was struck by the ravages their moment of 
wild impulse had made there. It was not only that her 
hair was all at sixes and sevens and her cheeks were scarlet 
and her bosom rising and falling tumultuously ; there was 
actual tragedy in her eyes. Cleve, looking at her, troubled 
and helpless in the presence of a spiritual struggle he did 


BARBARA PICKS A HUSBAND 


not remotely understand, cursed himself only for botching 
a situation that had promised so well. He had gone 
ahead too fast, he said to himself, and she was frightened. 

He felt a sudden ache at the pathetic picture she made, 
and took a step toward her, holding out his hand, friendly- 
wise. 

She laid her own on it an instant limply, and let it fall 
again; for the fellowship of it started the tears, and she 
did not dare yield to tears just then. He continued to 
look at her, altogether helpless now. It seemed to Bar- 
bara that he was far more handsome than she had sup- 
posed. The aggressiveness and covert insolence were 
gone ; the lines were all softened by a tenderness that was 
new to her in that face. She stared at him in mute appeal 
— for what, she did not know. She was only dimly con- 
scious that she, who had been merrily disporting herself 
in the front yard of the house of life, found herself sud- 
denly on the very threshold of the mysteries. 

At last, without a word, she turned, snapped out the 
light in the pantry and proceeded back to the hall with 
Young Lochinvar at her heels. At the doorway between 
the dining-room and living-room, she hesitated, clutching 
at the hangings and turning half toward him. 

“ I forgot — all about the eatables,” she said. “ Don’t 
you want some cookies and ginger-ale? ” 

No, thank you,” he said quietly. 

Without further speech they walked to the front door. 
He drew on his coat and, with a whimsical, contrite smile, 
pulled the memorable gloves from his pocket and looked 
at them for an instant. 

Barbara smiled faintly, and again, for some reason or 
other, the tears threatened her composure. 

“ Suppose we divvy? ” said he, holding out one of the 
gloves. 

She took it, dreamily. The front door opened and shut. 
Cleve Winsor was gone. Mechanically she thrust the 


BARBARA PICKS A HUSBAND 


2S 


white glove into the bosom of her dress and sat down on 
the lower step of the stairs and wept convulsively. 

Mrs. Collingwood, struggling, not with perfect success, 
to concentrate on David, King of Israel, heard the closing 
of the door, and closed the book, awaiting with what 
composure she eould muster, Barbara’s ascent and the 
argument that was sure to follow. She did not hear the 
expected step on the stair. Instead, she heard the sound 
of sobbing. In a moment she was kneeling at Barbara’s 
side, holding the cold, lifeless hand. Without a word, she 
began to rub it, but Barbara withdrew it almost fiercely, 
and like a flash was on her feet, and running up the stairs. 

Mrs. Collingwood heard a door closed sharply and the 
turning of a key. Her own face was like carved stone as 
she slowly ascended to her bedroom. 


IV 


C HESTER HOWELL shared Tom Paraway’s vigil 
for ten minutes, and then, unable to endure the pros- 
pect of thirty-five more, hailed a taxi, returning from up- 
town, and departed for that green oasis near the Grand 
Central over which the ghost of Eli Yale presides. There 
was no time for farewells. There was a tooting 
three blocks away, a dash, and Tom Faraway was 
on guard by himself. He walked slowly up and down, 
with eyes fixed on the Collingwood stoop, a hun- 
dred or more yards away on the farther side of the 
street, five paces north, five paces south, between the 
tall wrought-iron grating at the comer and the curb. 
A fresh wind rose soon after midnight and came down the 
Avenue with all the imps of March whistling and whining 
in its wake. There was a flurry of snow and for a moment 
a whirling as of thousands of moths around the arc- 
lights. A night watchman inquired gruffly what he was 
waiting for. 

Tom told him frankly. A young fellow’s calling on 
my girl,” he said. 

Quick as a flash, the man clapped his hands over every 
pocket, front and rear, where a handsome society man, 
jealous of a rival, might possibly hide a weapon. The 
speed of the operation was extraordinary. 

Tom laughed softly. “ Fooled again, old man,” he re- 
marked. 

‘‘ Show me your hands 1 ” 

Tom did so. 

“ Thought you might be out for a shoot-up,” said the 
watchman, almost genially. 


24 


BARBARA PICKS A HUSBAND 


25 


I might, if it would do any good,” answered Tom 
Paraway. ‘‘ But it wouldn’t. 

No. It don’t do any good to get mixed up with the 
law. A lot of young fellows like you think they can put it 
over, and once or twice, if they’re lucky, maybe they can. 
But sooner or later they get it, and up they go. Not 
bad fellows either.” 

“ I wasn’t thinking of the police,” said Tom, with eyes 
still fixed on the CoUingwood stoop, ‘‘ when I said it 
wouldn’t do any good; I was thinking of the girl.” 

“ That’s right,” remarked the watchman thoughtfully. 
“ You can’t get a girl by any knock-out game, not if she’s 
worth getting.” He paused a moment, looking skyward 
and rubbing his chin. He was a keen-faced man of the 
mechanic type, beardless and wiry. “ I buried my wife 
three months ago,” he continued in matter of fact tones. 
“ She was a good girl. We was married nineteen years. 
Ran away when we were fifteen and sixteen. What do ye 
know about that.? I’m a draughtsman by profession. 
Only took up this job after my wife died, ’cause I was 
lonely and I didn’t want to get running with the boys. I 
won’t stick at this work forever. I’m thinking of getting 
married again. My wife’s kid sister. Say ! Courting 
her’s no Sunday afternoon picnic, let me tell you. My 
brain just gets tired out talking back to her and arguing 
with her why being married is better than being single, 
and why a good time isn’t the whole o’ life, nor inde- 
pendence neither. She reads everything you ever saw, 
and what she don’t know isn’t worth talkin’ about. I 
like it. It’s not good for a man to marry a little me-too. 
The trouble is she knows a bit about pretty near every- 
thing and nothing thorough. That’s not her fault either. 
But it makes her spin on her ear about things like social- 
ism, an’ religion, an’ birth control — What do ye know 
about that.? — an’ politics. Now I’m a strict organ- 
ization man myself — Tammany, y’ understand — I be- 


BARBARA PICKS A HUSBAND 


lieve in it. I know the papers say Tammany’s corrupt, 
an’ all that, but the papers are all for the rich fellers, an’ 
Tammany plays square by the poor man pretty nearly 
always. But, d’ ye know, she wouldn’t talk to me for a 
week because I refused to knife the ticket at the last 
election. She was all wrong, but I respected her for it. A 
woman like that’s a proposition to court, but once she’s 
married she gets over the funny business, and say ! spunk 
before marriage makes a good home afterwards. Take 
that from me.” 

“ How many has your girl got on the string? ” asked 
Tom Paraway, without turning. 

The man laughed softly. “ Four or five. She keeps 
’em all going at the same time, like the juggler in the 
circus. Some juggling, too, believe me. It gets the other 
fellows sore, though they don’t dare say so to her for 
fear of getting the go-by. I don’t blame her. She knows 
a lot about life that her mother didn’t know at her age, 
and she’s doing a pile of thinking. I shouldn’t wonder 
now if she shook the lot of us an’ took to school-teaching. 
She likes children. She’d make a fine mother. An’ yet, 
as I say, she may decide to teach. I wouldn’t blame her. 
But I wouldn’t marry anybody else. I’d wait for her to 
change her mind. A girl like that’s worth waiting for.” 

Tom was still watching the Collingwood stoop. 
‘‘You’re dead right, old man,” he said. “I wish you 
luck.” 

“ Thanks,” said the watchman. “ Same to you.” 

“ Thanks.” 

“ Well, I’ve got to get on the job.” 

“ Tell your girl from me that she’ll have to give in 
sooner or later, so she might as well give in now.” 

The watchman chuckled. “ I’ve told her that long ago. 
She said, ‘ Don’t you make the mistake of expecting me to 
act according to any rules you get from books, then you 
won’t be disappointed.’ ” 


BARBARA PICKS A HUSBAND 


27 


“ Some girl ! ” said Tom. 

“ Believe me ! ” said the watchman. ‘‘ Good night ! ” 

“ Good night ! ” 

The watchman disappeared around the corner and 
strode up the Avenue to Fifty-eighth Street. Tom looked 
at his watch. Twenty minutes gone. He took to pacing 
to and fro across the curb again, conscious that the de- 
pression which had previously possessed him had vanished, 
leaving in its place something curiously like elation. The 
adage that Misery loves Company did not seem to him to 
explain this entirely. The philosophic watchman with his 
parallel experience somehow converted the picayune little 
personal difBculty of a certain Tom Paraway into a social 
problem, dignifying thereby not only Barbara but Tom 
himself. It struck him suddenly that he was dealing, not 
with a flirt, but with an age ; that in this delicate bit of 
fluff and feathers the ignorance and stupidity and short- 
sightedness and dependence of centuries past were bat- 
tling, like armies in a fog, with the vague, enormous, still 
unformed aspirations of the centuries to come. That dis- 
covery seemed to make a good deal of a heroine of Bar- 
bara. 

Another twenty minutes passed. Tom Paraway saw a 
black form suddenly appear at the top of a stoop half way 
down the block. 

I wonder what yarn he’ll spin,” said Tom to himself. 

The figure descended the steps slowly and turned toward 
Fifth Avenue. But after a half dozen strides it stopped 
abruptly, turned about face and moved swiftly westward. 
It occurred to Tom that the reason for this was that a 
certain patient rival had proved a recognizable silhouette 
against the brightness of the Avenue, and Cleve Winsor 
had decided that it would probably take a stronger yarn 
than he could spin to impress Tom Paraway. Tom stood 
a minute thoughtfully gazing down the sidewalk toward 
Sixth Avenue. 


28 


BARBARA PICKS A HUSBAND 


At the Plaza cabstand, as luck would have it, he ran 
square into Young Lochinvar, about to enter a taxi. A 
pitiless arc-light revealed the fact that Cleve Winsor 
would have preferred not to meet Tom Paraway at that 
moment. 

‘‘ You didn’t wait, I hope.^ ” he remarked, after the first 
moment of confusion. 

“ You asked me to,” said Tom quietly, feeling on the 
whole that he was having his revenge. 

“ Mrs. Collingwood begged me to stay for a bite. You 
know the way these mothers have. Sometimes you can’t 
in decency refuse.” 

Tom looked at him, wondering whether Cleve Winsor 
were really as big a fool as he pretended to be, or whether 
his flimsy excuses were merely the light veil he threw over 
his contempt for other people’s opinion. 

Winsor lighted a cigarette and opened the taxi door. 
‘‘ Come along,” he said. “ I’m an innocent stranger in the 
wicked city, and I want to see all the cabarets on Broadway 
before I go to bed. I only come to town for three days in 
the year, but I take those three days strong. That’s the 
only way I can stand Minnesota the rest of the time.” 

Tom Paraway told himself that he’d see himself damned 
first. But before he could speak, Winsor’s hand was on 
his arm and Winsor was saying, in a pleasant, pleading 
voice, “ Come along. You’re the first man I’ve met in 
New York that I ever wanted to talk to twice. And 
there’s a lot of things I want to talk to you about. Be a 
sport.” 

Tom wondered what under the sun Cleve Winsor had 
to discourse upon, gave the whole matter a sober second 
thought, and decided to accompany the innocent stranger 
to the river of the white lights. 


V 


‘ ^/^RAND place, isn’t it?” cried Cleve Winsor, evi- 
VJf dently thrilled to the depths of him, as the taxi, 
failing, through no fault of the driver, to annihilate the 
clerkj looking person who was escorting two loud young 
ladies across Forty-sixth Street, turned the corner and 
shot honking into the dazzle and glare of Broadway. His 
eyes fairly gleamed. There was no questioning his re- 
pressed excitement. A sober-minded New Yorker, given 
access to the disorderly engine and switchroom behind 
Cleve Winsor’s impassive forehead — called, for conven- 
ience, his mind — would have been amazed to see how 
drunk the very spectacle of Broadway could make the engi- 
neer who presided over it ; even a gay New Yorker with all 
his confidence that Broadway was the last word, would 
have been puzzled by the stir his preserve of flamboyance 
and gayety could make on this evidently sophisticated 
young man. 

There was the possibility, of course, that Cleve Winsor 
was not quite as sophisticated as he liked to appear; not 
quite so much at home in the world. 

But the real reason was that in the rather gay set in 
Minnesota, of which Cleve Winsor was king-pin, Broadway 
was the heaven they yearned for, and the god of Broad- 
way the deity whose image they strove to be. To East- 
erners they bragged about the real America which began 
at Chicago, and called New York effete and foreign and 
degenerate, but in the secrecy of their souls they longed 
for the authentic glare, of which their own gayety was 
only the mildest of reflections. 

All of which is to explain the gleam in Cleve Winsor’s 
29 


30 


BARBARA PICKS A HUSBAND 


eyes as the taxi stopped with a jerk before Hadden’s, the 
famous, and he and Tom Paraway descended to the curb. 
There was a crowd on the sidewalk, flowing in two streams, 
north and south. Winsor paid the driver and shouldered 
his way to the restaurant door, followed by his somewhat 
less aggressive companion. His face expressed nothing, 
but under the surface he was exulting in the jostling of 
the crowd, the tawdry dazzle of the signs, the enormous 
walls, the clanging, the motor-horns, the jabber. Tom 
Paraway watched him, caught the gleam in the eyes once 
more, and was amused, rather liking the man for being less 
bored than he pretended. 

They secured a table near the little stage, flanked by 
columns of purple and gold and carpeted in scarlet, 
which was supposed to exhibit the Most Startling yet Re- 
fined Vaudeville in the city. The room was oppressively 
gorgeous. There was gold everywhere. There was gold 
in the ceiling and gold on the hangings and gold on the 
black pilasters, which chopped the wall into mirrored 
panels but upheld nothing except the reputation of the pro- 
prietor for reckless splendor. 

Mrs. CoUingwood’s husband, who had had a philosophic 
turn to his mind, had once been heard to remark that he 
attributed the passing of the belief in heaven as a place of 
marble halls and golden stairs, and other features of ar- 
chitectural magnificence, largely to the appearance of all 
these glories on Broadway. Here they were, undeniably, 
snuffing out imagination’s last candle. The imaginative 
soul would have to think of a different kind of heaven; 
meanwhile to Pappenheimer of New York and to Smith of 
Kansas, this earthly paradise had charms. 

This was very evident, for the place was crowded, 
packed. Only the slim waiters could slip between the 
tables, and a single portly guest would hopelessly block 
traffic. The room was large and the mirrors appeared 
to stretch it infinitely in all directions, so that it seemed 


BARBARA PICKS A HUSBAND 


31 


a limitless field of splashed colors peppered with black and 
white dress suits. And everybody was eating and drink- 
ing. 

Tom Paraway, crow^ded against the back of a corpulent 
Pappenheimer, stared at the card the waiter thrust under 
his nose, suddenly disgusted by the crowd and the heat and 
the perspiring waiters and the scent of perfume and food. 
He decided that oysters would slip with the least effort. 
Cleve Winsor remonstrated, and, when Tom proved ob- 
durate, ordered the most expensive entree on the bill for 
himself. The expenditure of much cash was for some 
reason the first essential of a spree. They began with 
cocktails and went on with champagne. Tom, wise in his 
day and generation, sipping, as he mentally consigned the 
headache he saw impending to Winsor. 

They listened without enthusiasm to a solo or two from 
an angular soprano, and then attempted to talk. But 
conversation came hard, and for a while dealt with com- 
monplaces and the acquaintance or two that every man 
from Pekin has in common with any man from Cork. For 
the moment, Winsor evidently preferred silence and the 
opportunity of studying his neighbors. 

These were varied. The old and the young were there, 
the fat and the lean, the ugly and the beautiful, the vulgar 
and the elect. East Side and West Side ; thrown together 
in this gilded pot by the insatiable hunger for anything 
that was expensive. There were ladies evidently from the 
streets here, and in a class higher, ladies from apartments 
mysteriously subsidized ; accompanied by heavy-faced, 
gross men and sallow-faced, “ smart men,” by Jews and 
newly rich Gentiles, all very gallant and entertaining. 
There were stout women in high neck dresses with hus- 
bands, slightly distrait, evidently tourists ; parties of two 
and parties of ten, eating and drinking and jabbering; 
with here and there a group of sweet-faced debutantes, 
attended by swains from Yale or Harvard or Princeton, 


32 


BARBARA PICKS A HUSBAND 


and chaperoned by some motherly person, beautifully 
gowned in gray foulards and seemingly unconscious of any 
incongruity in the presence in that place of herself or her 
charges. 

What do you make of Mrs. Collingwood.'^ ” asked 
Cleve Winsor suddenly. 

Tom swung his mind from Hadden’s to Mrs. Colling- 
wood with an effort. The arc was considerable. ‘‘ In 
what connection.^ ” he asked. 

“ Well, in connection with Barbara. I can’t make her 
out at all. She disapproves of me. I can see that. But 
she doesn’t seem to make any bones about leaving us alone 
together.” He spoke the words almost resentfully. 

It was possible that the scene in the pantry had left in 
Winsor’s conscience a bit of a twinge. It was a rather 
underfed, but at times active, conscience, and it pricked 
him a little now. He suspected that Mrs. Collingwood 
had mentally put him on his honor by leaving him alone 
with Barbara, and acknowledged to himself that his im- 
petuous love-making had not under the circumstances 
been exactly knightly. 

I guess,” said Tom with deliberation, that she trusts 
Barbara to take care of herself.” 

I suppose so,” Cleve Winsor remarked meditatively, 
adding suddenly, But Barbara can’t, you know. No 
girl can.” 

This point of view struck Tom as unusual in the latitude 
of New York, and he said so. 

‘‘ That’s true enough,” answered Winsor quickly. 
“You New Yorkers sentimentalize girls. You don’t see 
enough of ’em. Only at dinners and dances, when they’re 
on parade. Or playing golf, which, in its way, is the same 
thing. You never see the real girl. Take any intel- 
ligent farmer-boy from up the state — I don’t mean a 
skirt-chaser, but a good square fellow with a brain — and 


BARBARA PICKS A HUSBAND 


S3 


I’ll bet that he can tell you city people a hundred things 
you don’t know about women.” 

“ You don’t believe in the sweet innocence of the coun- 
tryside, I take it,” said Tom. 

“No, I don’t. I know it too well. I was brought up 
there. But that isn’t the point I’m driving at. It’s this. 
You pretend that your girls are little tin goddesses, and 
let ’em go ahead as though they had the wisdom of all 
experience by instinct. They haven’t. Nine-tenths of 
this talk of intuition is perfect bunk. Intuition is just 
sex instinct, and it’s as likely to lead ’em wrong as right, 
as far as happiness is concerned. You wouldn't trust a 
boy of eighteen or twenty with, say, an average mani- 
curist, would you.^ But the average fellow of twenty-four 
or five is no better and no worse — not thoroughly bad at 
all, just easy-going. But you tell your girls that they’re 
divinely able to take care of themselves, and that men are 
putty in their hands, and all they have to do is go ahead 
and show what they can do. That isn’t fair to the girls. 
Most of the talk about the friendly and harmless relations 
of the sexes in America is nonsense. When boys and 
girls get together, they spoon, just as they do anywhere 
else. And unless somebody with sense interferes they’ll 
take their sex instinct for love and get married — or not. 
And as a rule nobody does interfere. Girls are supposed 
to know what they are doing; and ninety-nine times out 
of a hundred they haven’t the remotest idea about it. 
That’s why the modern mother seems to me criminally 
negligent.” 

Tom Paraway received this lecture with an oyster 
poised in mid-air. At the close of it, he swallowed the 
oyster, and thoughtfuly sipped his champagne before he 
answered. “ There are mothers and mothers, of course,” 
he said. “ And some of those who let their daughters go 
ahead and fight their own battles are not as lazy or blind, 


34 


BARBARA PICKS A HUSBAND 


or plain, stupidly optimistic as possibly the majority may 
be. Mrs. Collingwood isn’t lazy or happy-go-lucky. 
She knows Barbara pretty thoroughly, and she doesn’t 
overrate her wisdom at all. In fact, I don’t think she 
gives Barbara credit for the real horse sense she has. 
She worries more than is necessary. I agree with you 
absolutely as far as most of the girls are concerned. But 
Barbara really happens to be one of those who can take 
care of themselves.” 

Cleve Winsor chuckled softly. “ There you go,” he 
said. ‘‘ You’re as bad as the rest of them. You’re all 
hypped. You can’t see straight.” 

Tom smiled, mainly because he felt like hitting the man, 
and did not think that Hadden’s was the place to do it. 
“ You see,” he said slowly, “ I happen to have known 
Barbara a little longer than you. You’ve known her a 
month now, more or less, and I’ve known her twenty years, 
more or less. I’ve been told that I met her the day after 
she was born. I’ve seen considerable of her since.” 

“ Oh ! ” said Cleve, somewhat lamely, telling himself that 
he had made a discovery of importance. A silence that 
promised to be disastrous to what remained of their sup- 
per-party was ended skilfully by Tom Paraway’s matter- 
of-fact return to the original theme of the conversation. 

“ Mrs. Collingwood isn’t happy-go-lucky at all in her 
attitude toward Barbara,” he said. “ She lets her go 
ahead, learning her lessons in her own way, but she doesn’t 
sit back, any more than she autocratically directs. She 
talks things over with Barbara all the time, whether Bar- 
bara likes it or not. Barbara generally doesn’t like it, 
and the discussions end in trouble more than half the time. 
But anyway, Barbara is kept on her mettle. This has 
been going on ever since she came back from boarding 
school, two years ago. I’d trust her anywhere.” 

He said this, gazing with quiet deliberation straight 
into Cleve Winsor’s face. There was the suggestion of an 


BARBARA PICKS A HUSBAND 


35 


upward turn at the corners of his mouth ; his whole expres- 
sion was friendly. Winsor resented its quiet confidence. 
It said, clear as words, “ Go ahead, old man. I’m not 
afraid of you.” He thought of the scene in the pantry 
and it seemed to him that Tom Para way was a babe in 
arms compared to himself. He drank his champagne 
slowly for the excuse it gave him to study the face across 
the table. It was a compact sort of face in the sense that 
a surgeon’s first aid kit is compact — everything neces- 
sary was there in right proportion, no feature encroach- 
ing on the domain of any other, everything solid and clean 
and ready for emergencies. It was a boy’s face as Cleve 
Winsor’s w^as emphatically the face of a grown man, hard- 
ened prematurely by wide rather than deep experience. 

‘‘ You don’t know very much, do you? ” said Winsor 
familiarly, with a patronizing smile. 

Paraway picked up a cracker about the size of a twenty- 
five cent piece, and ate it leisurely. Winsor’s face was 
beginning to look flushed. Young Lochinvar was evi- 
dently a one-bottle man. 

“ No,” Tom admitted, and again the corners of his 
mouth took the upward turn. “ Not very much.” 

I mean about women.” 

“ Exacth\ I’ve admitted it.” 

Cleve Winsor was a man not only of one bottle, but 
of one idea, and that idea, the malicious might add, was 
not his. But he made no pretensions to copyright on it, 
passing it along without thought of royalties whenever the 
opportunity offered. He liked to talk about sex and he 
talked about it to old and young, male and female, greatly 
embarrassing girls and middle-aged spinsters, and irritat- 
ing beyond expression all who really knew something 
about the subject. Sex was his one topic of conversation. 
WTen that failed, all w^as over. He had a brother who 
was in college at the same time who talked of nothing 
except Hygiene; but, fortunately, Herbert is not in this 


36 


BARBARA PICKS A HUSBAND 


story, for if he were there would be no room for any one 
else. 

“ There’s an awful lot of nonsense talked about women,” 
Winsor remarked casually. 

A pair of dancers, doing their turn with arresting grace, 
checked the incipient discourse. 

“ Say ! ” he cried excitedly, half turning over the back 
of his chair to get a better view, “ I bet they get five hun- 
dred a night for that. Some town, eh, what.? ” 

The dancers finished their trick and disappeared. Win- 
sor, with gleaming eyes, faced his plate again and renewed 
acquaintance with the champagne. “ As I was saying, 
there’s an awful lot of nonsense talked about women,” he 
resumed, leaning across the table. “ And the foolishest 
nonsense of all is the nonsense about their being myste- 
rious and complex.” 

He paused impressively, then proceeded as though fully 
conscious of the originality and importance of what he 
was about to pronounce. “ They’re not. They’re simple. 
Man is complex. That’s why he can’t understand women. 
Sex with him is only one feature in a three-ring circus. 
But with women it’s the whole show. They are so ter- 
ribly simple and direct that a man is stumped by them, 
expecting to find them as complicated as he is himself, and 
not knowing what to make of their simplicity. Every- 
thing in their character and experience they focus on one 
point — the satisfaction of the sex instinct.” 

“ Come off ! ” said Tom, good-humoredly. 

“ I told you you didn’t know very much,” Winsor re- 
torted. “ Not about women. I do. I began to study 
woman when I was fifteen, and I’ve studied her ever since. 
Woman was practically the one subject I did study at 
New Haven. That’s why I was dropped the end of Soph- 
omore year. They don’t count it for a degree. But sex 
is the beginning and the end. Take my word for that.” 

“ It may be, you know,” said Tom with the smile still 


BARBARA PICKS A HUSBAND 


37 

hovering about the corners of his mouth, “ that your ac- 
quaintance, though wide, may have been limited to a cer- 
tain type, of whom all you say is probably true.” 

“ Not a bit of it ! ” cried the other, a little louder than 
was necessary. “You mean street-walkers, don’t you? 
I don’t. I keep away from street-walkers. I mean so- 
ciety women and society girls, brainy women, respectable 
married women and girls like — w^ell, like the girls at the 
party to-night.” 

Winsor’s voice was consciously brutal. Tom saw that 
the man was proud of his brutal directness, and decided 
that Cleve Winsor was more fool than knave. But his own 
smile faded as he regarded the flushed, arrogant face, 
silently with unwinking eyes, until Winsor, suddenly 
discomfited, picked up his champagne glass again and 
drained it. 

“ You’re mixed,” said Tom at last. “ It isn’t sex that 
bothers — those girls you mentioned. That is, it doesn’t 
bother them any more than it bothers men, if as much — 
which I doubt. It’s one ring in their three-ring circus. 
What makes it appear more important is the fact that, 
since the beginning of things men have tried to make women 
believe that their only excuse for existence was their ability 
to decorate a harem or run a nursery. Women just had 
to marry, that was all there was to it. From every direc- 
tion woman was pushed toward marriage. That was sup- 
posed to be her one possible job. Spinsterhood was made 
as unattractive and as disgraceful as possible. Natur- 
ally, girls thought that they had to get out and corral a 
husband first thing. Conditions have changed a bit dur- 
ing the last generation or two, but not much. Tradition 
dies hard and ninety-nine girls out of a hundred stiU think 
that the most important thing for them to do is to get 
married before they’re twenty-five. But the new ideas 
that are in the air are blowing their way, and for a girl 
with brains they complicate the situation like the devil.” 


BARBARA PICKS A HUSBAND 


S8 


“ You’re a poet and a scholar,” remarked Cleve Winsor, 
once more raising his glass. “ Here’s how ! ” He emp- 
tied his glass slowly, and leaning over, drew the bottle from 
its icy bucket and poured out what remained of the cham- 
pagne, to the last drop. Tom let him have it all, feeling 
slightly guilty at leaving so much to Winsor who evi- 
dently had more than he could safely carry as it was ; yet 
afraid, if he accepted any, that Winsor would order an- 
other bottle, which would probably prove calamitous. 

“ You’re a poet and a scholar,” Winsor repeated with 
deliberation. “ But as I re-remarked before, you don’t 
know much about women.” 

“ Right you are ! ” said Tom. “ Nobody does. Or 
about men either. We’re all of us hopelessly complex. 
And there’s no one key that’ll open more than one lock, 
and you’re lucky if it will open that.” 

Cleve Winsor reached out his hand across the table. 
“ I like you,” he said. 

Tom took the hand and shook it, feeling foolish and 
self-conscious and wondering how he was going to lie him- 
self out of the situation. But the whole thing was so 
absurd, with Cleve Winsor’s flushed face positively ardent, 
not half a yard from his, that he suddenly found himself 
telling the truth. “ I’m hanged if I like you,” he said. 
“ Frankly, I don’t.” 

Tom Paraway did not enjoy hurting people’s feelings 
and his expression, with its mingling of protest and regret, 
struck Cleve Winsor as so deliciously humorous that he 
upset his champagne glass in his endeavor adequately to 
slam the table, and sent it crashing to the floor. At the 
neighboring tables, guests turned in their chairs, some 
grinning, some with lifted brows. Tom saw the head 
waiter thread his course through the labyrinth, asked for 
the check and paid it, Cleve Winsor being too busy gath- 
ering his wits to notice. 

The crowd on Broadway had thinned, the time being 


BARBARA PICKS A HUSBAND 


39 


one-thirtj in the morning. Cleve Winsor stood still out- 
side the door of Hadden’s, balanced himself — adequately, 
on the whole — and raised his hat to let the night air 
blow about his forehead. “ Now whereto next.?^ ” he asked, 
a little thickly. 

‘‘ My guess is bed,” said Tom. 

Winsor would not hear of bed. “ I want to see some 
dancing,” he said petulantly. “ Some of those — castles 
where you have to knock three-three-thrice — at the back 
door — the postern gate — the family entrance — before 
the gadzooks — varlets — will let down the — drawbridge 
— and bid you — approach. You’re a gentleman. You 
ought to know a place like that. Come on now. Be a 
good fellow. Be a — be a — be a sport.” 

Tom confessed complete ignorance of the ways that are 
dark. “ Bed’s the place for you, old man,” he concluded. 
‘‘ Better let me tuck you in.” 

Once more Winsor raised his hat, breathing deeply once 
or twice. Bed — bed’s the place,” he assented, swaying 
slightly. 

Tom took his arm without ostentation. “ Where are 
you staying.'^ ” 

Winsor considered a moment. “ St. James!” he cried 
suddenly, with absurd exultation at this feat of memory. 
“ Father’s — favorite — hostelry.” 

A vision of shaded lamps and soft carpets and pervasive 
respectability invaded by the unsteady figure of Cleve 
Winsor flashed through Tom Paraway’s mind. “ Better 
dodge the St. James to-night,” he advised. “ I’ve got an 
extra bed at home.” 

“ Extra bed I ” whispered Cleve Winsor mysteriously. 

They took a taxi to the house on Riverside Drive, and 
climbed three flights to the floor that was Tom Paraway’s 
own. Winsor sat down on a couch, with a cigarette in 
one hand and a lighted match in the other, and was asleep 
before he could bring the two together. Tom put out the 


40 


BARBARA PICKS A HUSBAND 


match before it had burned more than a small hole in his 
best rug; and with care and dispatch undressed Cleve 
Winsor and led him to his own bed. 

He himself did not go to sleep for some hours. The 
world did not look any the rosier for Winsor’s sleepy 
remark, as his head sank into the pillow, “ Kissed Barbara 
in the pantry to-night. An’ she liked it.” 


VI 


N ew YORK is a terrible place during the quiet hours 
between the putting out of the lights and the rat- 
tling of the first milk wagon. All cities are terrible dur- 
ing those hours, but in New York the fierceness of the 
bustle of daytime seems to make more poignant than else- 
where the prodigious silence of the night. A great Eng- 
lish poet stood on London Bridge once upon a time looking 
at the city and marveling how all that mighty heart was 
lying still. But the heart never is lying still. Outwardly 
all is respectable and quiet, with the watchman on guard 
and every house-light snapped off as it should be : 
but behind the walls are conflict and agony and terror and 
remorse, and the watchman never guesses, and learns 
nothing even from the occasional, flashing revelation of 
a headline in the morning paper. 

Barbara’s locking of her bedroom door did not mean 
that she had shut out the perplexing world and was going 
to bed and to sleep. It meant that she had a problem to 
solve and wanted to be alone to solve it in her own way, 
unconfused and unharried by her mother. She stood an 
instant inside the closed door, catching her breath as she 
steadied herself with her hand on the knob ; then she turned 
on the light, crossed calmly to her dressing-table and un- 
fastened the pearls at her neck. She had no maid. Her 
mother might have afforded one, but decided that if Bar- 
bara desired the gay life of a New York season or two, 
Barbara, for the good of her soul, had better work for it, 
a wise conclusion, accepted by the young lady with silent 
but scornful resentment. 


41 


4>2 


BARBARA PICKS A HUSBAND 


She slipped out of her dress like a somewhat prettified 
Venus from the wave, and letting down her hair deposited 
such portions of it which had originated in other scalps 
than hers on the celluloid tray before the mirror, and 
dreamily loosened and fluffed up the none too generous 
mass that was her own. It was not extraordinary hair at 
all, but there was life in it, a willingness to curl and wave 
and glint, golden, in the light. She raised it on her fin- 
gers, watching in the glass the youthful sheen of it, and 
not altogether displeased. 

She was a piquant, attractive little person even by her- 
self with no grandstand to delight, unquestionably pretty, 
and without doubt very expensive to keep. A cynic, who 
had been bitten, might have said that she was a show ani- 
mal, finely marked and up to standard, an excellent pet 
for a millionaire, but a poor man’s ticket to perdition, 
granted the possibility of a poor man’s winning her, which 
was highly improbable ; a pretty bit of detail for the first 
tier at the Metropolitan, but in no way startling as a 
beauty, and useless as a producer ; on the whole, an irrita- 
tion to the spirit and a valid excuse for bombs. All this 
not only our cynic, but even a stranger, seeing Barbara 
for the first time, might reasonably assert. But he would 
be thoroughly off’ the track, disregarding the spirit that 
happened to be under the fluffy prettiness. 

She kept this spirit well hidden. She had a notion that 
the things which an elder generation used to call “ noble ” 
were vulgar, unfashionable. Virtue was well enough if 
you did not have wealth; but having wealth, virtue must 
be kept, like the scrubwoman, out of sight ; wealth bearing 
with it the paramount obligation of being fashionable. 
To use wealth for other purposes was ostentatious or 
eccentric. 

Barbara would have suffered torture rather than admit 
that she had desires now and then not altogether in har- 
mony with the point of view of the society in which she 


BARBARA PICKS A HUSBAND 


43 


seemed so absolutely to delight; to confess, for instance, 
that she had an absurd notion in the bottom of her heart 
somewhere that she wanted to live a useful life of large 
dimensions, happy, if possible, but surely wide and gener- 
ous. She did her best to kill off that notion, but it seemed 
to have strange vitality; playing dead for months at a 
time and then suddenly lifting its head and speaking some 
saving word at the eleventh hour. She scorned it and 
scorned what she considered the weakness in herself that 
allowed her to yield to this jack-in- the-grave relic of six- 
teen. It was the most tenacious and last of the girlhood 
aspirations to which her starved spirit seemed, in spite of 
her, to cling. A wonderful old lady had implanted it one 
summer six or seven years ago. That lady was the elder 
Mrs. Collingwood, her father’s mother. She was a gentle 
little woman of firm convictions, and the lecture she had 
seen fit to deliver at the end of Barbara’s first year at 
boarding-school three years previous had definitely severed 
the last attenuated strands of the relation between them 
which had once been so firm and close. Barbara had not 
seen her grandmother since. 

Barbara undressed quickly; then, in her nightgown^ 
she busied herself about the room, stowing her dress away 
in its paper-muslin bag, and then aimlessly wandering 
about with the thing in her hands, forgetting that she had 
intended to hang it up in the closet. The truth was that, 
though she had fled to her room to think undisturbed, she 
was mortally afraid of the rough seas she saw awaiting 
the launching of her thoughts. 

She heard her mother moving about in the adjoining 
room; once she heard a slight click of the knob of the 
door communicating directly between Mrs. Collingwood’s 
room and hers, as though a hand had been laid tentatively 
upon it. 

Barbara’s answer was the snapping off of the electric 
light switch. 


u 


BARBARA PICKS A HUSBAND 


The door was unlocked, but Mrs. CoUingwood did not 
take advantage of this, evidently considering patience the 
better part of devotion. 

Barbara heard the various clocks in the house strike one 
and then two and then three. The clocks, not having a 
master, were all either slow or fast — for the talents even 
of rarely efficient women seem curiously to fail in the 
presence of clocks and fountain pens — and one or an- 
other, therefore, was striking every quarter hour or so. 
Barbara was grateful for the friendly music which seemed 
to pull her tossing thoughts home to their moorings for 
an instant before they sailed forth on other turbulent 
cruises. 

She concentrated her attention mainly on Cleve Winsor. 
The situation had cleared to this extent — Tom Faraway, 
as well as Chester Howell, was definitely eliminated. Both 
had suddenly slipped into the background. Why, or at 
what moment, she herself could not tell; but neither was 
any longer a person to be considered as a marriageable 
possibility. Chester was too inconsequent, Tom too con- 
stantly irritating. They were out of the running. That 
at least was settled. Henceforth they could be considered 
only as foils for the true hero of the play who was Cleve 
Winsor. The question now was not. Which of the Three 
but Cleve Winsor or Nobody-at-all.^ 

The possibility of Nobody-at-all was a new element 
in Barbara’s meditations. It had taken shape half-con- 
sciously in her reaction against Cleve Winsor’s too pas- 
sionate love-making, and had gradually assumed menacing 
proportions. What an elder generation would have called 
her “ maidenly modesty ” had received a shock. One 
somehow did not associate “ maidenly modesty ” with Bar- 
bara or her friends, with the exception of Ruth Torrey. 
The cut of their frocks, the paint, the walk, the evident 
wish to be stared at, the careless abandon as they danced 
the dances that only the wickedest of tourists used to see, 


BARBARA PICKS A HUSBAND 


45 


surreptitiously, in Naples or Rio — all these things seemed 
to indicate that, whatever qualities this generation might 
possess, “ maidenly modesty ” was not one of them. But 
it was there, nevertheless, clutching at the heart as in 
the days when their great-grandmothers danced with La- 
fayette. 

In the light of the pantry experience, Nobody-at-all 
seemed to Barbara the attractive way out of her dilemma. 
She had been kissed before, of course. A dozen boys had 
kissed her, claiming that privilege as reward for arduous 
and expensive attentions at Sixth Form Dances and col- 
lege proms ; but those kisses had been very different from 
Cleve Winsor’s in the pantry — most respectful, all of 
them, cordial rather than affectionate, eagerly given, gra- 
ciously received, — “ ever so much obliged ” — “ you’re wel- 
come ” — “ good-by.” 

But Cleve Winsor’s kisses had swung back the Enormous 
Gates suddenly, without warning. There before her eyes 
was the Garden of Love. The colors dazzled, the per- 
fume sickened her. Something in her seemed to recoil and 
cry, ‘‘ I wiU have none of it.” She felt as though some 
glory, cherished surpassingly, was slipping from her. 

And yet — coolly considered — here she was at the end 
of her second season, ready on the whole to relinquish the 
social game, immensely curious to know what marriage was 
like, destined by all the rules of the game to an early (and 
stylish) wedding, and mortally in love with the handsomest 
thing she had ever seen. He was incidentally rich, which 
was as it should be. It would be utterly silly not to marry 
him. 

‘‘ Ah ! ” said Maidenly Modesty, “ but what of that 
queer feeling you had in the pantry? For the flash of a 
second was it love or was it loathing that you felt? ” 

Barbara decided after some meditation that it was not 
loathing but rather fright, the newness of it all, the sud- 
den opening of womanhood. Of course, she would marry 


46 


BARBARA PICKS A HUSBAND 


Cleve Winsor. She wanted him, heart and soul. Why 
not, why not? Suddenly nausea overcame her. She felt 
unspeakably ill. 

“ Mother ! ” she called weakly. 

Mrs. Collingwood, in an embroidered kimono, and seek- 
ing solace from the father of Solomon the Wise, was wait- 
ing for the call, knowing that sooner or later, for some 
reason or other it would come. Barbara did not look 
at her or speak to her, but stared at the ceiling, trying to 
see beyond the disgusting consciousness of the body in 
rebellion, some vision of the life that awaited a girl of 
twenty-one who had decided it must be Nobody-at-all. 

It may have been Ali Baba’s lobster Newburgh, but 
whatever it was, the members of Mrs. CoUingwood’s party, 
with the exception of Cleve Winsor, who was unwakeable, 
did not slumber soundly that night. They were all, it 
seems, thinking of Barbara, and all mapping out plans of 
campaign involving the whole course of Barbara’s future 
— Ruth, in all tenderness, Delia, with a touch of malice. 

Chester Howell slept, but his dreams were wild. He 
dreamt that he was a Turk with a seraglio and three beau- 
tiful damsels, who without warning leaped up from their 
cushions and became avenging furies pursuing him over 
precipices and torrents. It was not the kind of dream 
one would choose after an active day. But it was not 
altogether irrelevant to Chester Howell’s experience, for 
his thoughts, awake and asleep, had for weeks been filled 
by the tormenting fact that on a certain evening a month 
ago he had, in quick succession, declared his passionate 
devotion to two marriageable young ladies, neither of 
whom was the girl he was really in love with. 


VII 


T om PARAWAY’S day, as previously noted, began 
promptly at seven, and at seven on the morning fol- 
lowing Mrs. CoUingwood’s theater-party, an alarm-clock, 
somewhere in his brain, sounded, and he leapt up, not with 
alacrity, for he was fully conscious of the fact that he had 
had a miserable night, but with that grim determination 
with which a man will get up in spite of weariness when 
he has a schedule. 

On the whole, Tom’s schedule was elastic. His rising 
hour was the only rigid thing about it. Tacitly, his 
father and mother insisted on Seven. They said nothing 
about it, but breakfast was at Eight, and any one with 
the rudiments of arithmetic within could make his own 
calculations — so many minutes for bathing and shaving, 
so many for exercise, so many for Marcus Aurelius or 
H. G. Wells ; the arrangement was perfect. Tom’s 
mother, admiring Tom hugely and Barbara not at all, 
wondered with a puzzled brow and whimsical smile, not 
altogether mirthful, what would happen to the schedule in 
case it ever came into intimate contact with a certain 
hard little being, so indulgent of herself, so exacting of 
others. 

Tom heard a splashing and gasping in the bath room 
adjoining and for an instant wondered why his father 
should be using his shower instead of his own. A glance 
into his bedroom recalled to his mind the subject of his 
pre-slumber meditations. The bed was touselled, but there 
was no Cleve Winsor in it. That gentleman evidently 
had strong recuperative powers. Tom began his exer- 
cises in chest development with his mind elsewhere. 

47 


48 


BARBARA PICKS A HUSBAND 


A minute or two later, Cleve Winsor appeared, with a 
bath towel draped loosely about him. He bore surpris- 
ingly few marks of his insobriety of the previous night. 
His eyes were a bit dull, but they were never bright; the 
curious bronze gleam of them was there as usual. His 
skin was gray and the unevenness of the cheeks showed 
more distinctly in the fresh light of morning. But his 
appearance was otherwise respectable enough. 

“ Howdy,” he said, reaching out his hand. 

Tom Paraway took it. “ Didn’t expect you out as 
early as this,” he said. 

‘‘ I suppose I made a fool of myself last night,” Winsor 
remarked, picking up, as it happened, the very cigarette 
he had let fall five hours before. “I do — once in so 
often.” He yawned. ‘‘ It’s a family failing. My dad 
is one of the biggest lumbermen in Minnesota, but every 
once in so often he has to go off and get tight as a tick. 
The wonderful thing is he can sleep off the worst drunk 
in one night and get back to business fresh as a daisy next 
morning. He’s famous for it all over the State, and they 
talk about it in the camps. I seem to be the same way. 
I suppose it’s a sort of gift.” 

He laughed deprecatingly, and lit the cigarette. “ It’s 
a dangerous accomplishment, of course,” he went on. “ It 
lets you forget too fast. For the good of my soul, I ought 
to have a hang-over this morning, but I haven’t — not 
even a headache. But I’m damn sorry if I made a nuis- 
ance of myself.” He spoke the apology easily, and it took 
no diviner to see that the regret was not profound. 

Tom assured him that he had been no great care. 

“ The trouble with me,” remarked the other after a 
pause, ‘Ms that at bottom I’m a lumberjack. I have a 
way of forgetting that — when I get dolled up for parties 
and hang around town for a month or two. It isn’t that 
I get soused. Everybody gets soused sometime or other. 
But I get soused at the wrong time. I had no business 


BARBARA PICKS A HUSBAND 


49 


to get drunk last night, and to let you see me half under. 
For all I knew, you might have been the snide kind who 
would report me to the lady — ” 

He said this with unnecessary deliberation, Tom 
thought. 

“ But, of course,” Winsor proceeded quickly, ‘‘ you’re 
not. So that’s all right. I had luck, that was all. I 
might just as well have gone off with that young skyrocket, 
Chester Something-or-other, and been dished with Mrs. 
Collingwood for keeps. And I don’t believe in getting 
in bad with the mothers. You’re square. I can see that. 
In fact you’ve been damn decent. And I want to do the 
decent thing by you.” 

“Go ahead!” said Tom cheerfully. A more sensitive 
soul than Cleve Winsor might have noticed a lack of re- 
spect in the tone, but Cleve was not one to distinguish 
subtle shadings. Tom took to the shower. He suspected 
that Cleve was about to pour out his heart, and hoped, 
if possible, to prevent it. 

But Cleve was not to be staved off. He followed Tom 
to the bath, room and leaned against the door frame while 
Tom proceeded with his ablutions. Tom did not like to 
have strangers present at this morning ceremony, and 
splashed more wildly than usual under the cold water in 
the hope of driving the observer back into the sitting-room. 
But Cleve, girded in a towel, lighted a second cigarette, 
from the stump of the first, cast this stump lightly into 
the wash basin, and after a long and silent regard of his 
naked rival, began to talk. The water system of the Far- 
away house was a veritable steam calliope and Tom knew 
exactly how many turns of the faucet it took to bring out 
this or that prodigious note. He tried them all. But 
Cleve merely raised his voice, and to the accompaniment 
of shrieking waterpipes, through clouds of mingled ciga- 
rette-smoke and steam, confessed his love for Barbara Col- 
lingwood. 


50 


BARBARA PICKS A HUSBAND 


“ You were damn decent to bring me up here,” he called. 
“ And I want to tell you that I appreciate it. As I said, 
another man would have let me get into trouble and would 
have told on me afterwards. Not that that would have 
made any difference with Barbara. A fine girl like Bar- 
bara don’t believe everything she hears. But it might have 
made things difficult with her mother. Her mother’s old- 
fashioned. She has a lot of trouble with her mother. 
She told me that, when I first met her. That was in Min- 
neapolis a month ago. It was love at first sight — with 
both of us, I guess. Anyway, she said I could come East 
to see her, after a month, if I still felt the same.” 

The waterworks gave an ominous growl, followed imme- 
diately by a shrill squeak. Cleve Winsor leaned his head 
against the door post and puffed dreamily at his cigarette. 
“ And last night we got engaged,” he said. 

The words were drowned in a fresh burst of stentorian 
music. “ What’s that.?^ ” asked Tom Paraway sharply. 

“ Last night Barbara and I got engaged,” shouted 
Cleve. 

Tom turned on a deep tremolo that seemed to shake 
the building. At the same moment he brought down his 
foot suddenly on a spot where he knew there was always 
a puddle. A wave of icy water spurted out from under 
his foot and drenched Young Lochinvar. He completed 
his bath in private. 

Later, dressing together, they spoke of ordinary mat- 
ters, — of submarines, munitions, the future of democracy, 
the position of women after the war. 

At that, Cleve Winsor straightened up in front of the 
mirror and laid the brushes he had been using on the 
stump of another of his cigarettes on the dresser. 
“ There’s an awful lot of nonsense talked about women,” 
he began. “ And the foolish nonsense of all — ” For the 
first time a terrible thought occurred to him. “ My God, 
I can’t go to breakfast in a dress-suit ! ” he cried. “ And 


BARBARA PICKS A HUSBAND 


51 


I can’t get into your clothes. What in the name of Satan 
am I going to wear? ” 

The situation looked dark for the moment, but Tom 
solved it with a Spring suit of his father’s that happened 
to be awaiting its season in the rear of Tom’s wardrobe. 
They descended to the dining-room to the tune of, “ As I 
was saying, there’s an awful lot of nonsense — ” and so 
forth ; but at the door of the dining-room the lecture 
fizzled out. Mr. and Mrs. Faraway were already at the 
table and gently took command of the discourse for the 
time being. 

Cleve Winsor did not enjoy his breakfast, that is, not 
the beginning of it. His boast that the derangement of 
his equilibrium the evening before had left no effects was an 
habitual fiction with which he tried to persuade himself 
and others that he had truly inherited his father’s famous 
gift. In this as well as in other matters the elder Win- 
sor’s genius had descended to his son in diluted form. 
Cleve Winsor’s brain was therefore in no condition to cope 
with the airy, slightly ironic nonsense of Mrs. Paraway, 
or the more solid queries concerning lumber and the out- 
look for business and preparedness in the Middle West, 
directed at him by her husband. 

For breakfast at the Paraways’ was no informal scram- 
ble for cereal and coffee. It was an occasion for conver- 
sation, and the food was incidental. That was Mrs. Para- 
way’s main contribution to Mr. Paraway’s education : man 
is distinguishable from the other animals insofar as he has 
ideas and expresses them. Years ago, Mr. Paraway had 
protested against discussing Sainte Beuve over his oat- 
meal, but his protest had been quietly ignored. He lived 
to discuss first Oscar Wilde, then Kipling, then Maeter- 
linck, then Yeats, then Shaw, then Bergson, then Soralla, 
then “ Jean Chris tophe,” when the Great War sub- 
merged literature for the time, and the morning debate be- 
came a battledore and shuttlecock of subtle opinions, nicely 


52 


BARBARA PICKS A HUSBAND 


weighed, on democracy and imperialism, the future of the 
small nations, and so forth and so on, with occasional 
excursions into Imagism and vers libre. It was a game in 
which Mrs. Paraway delighted, for she was an exquisite 
player at it. Mr. Paraway suffered it, as many a great 
and good man has suffered croquet in its time, or yachting, 
out of courtesy or the pleasure of a graceful exhibition of 
skill. 

Cleve Winsor was helpless from the very beginning. 
Indeed, it was a part of the game with Mrs. Paraway to 
bewilder her hearer with the spun-glass brightness of her 
talk and then gracefully to extricate him from the snares 
she herself had flung. She charmed in both roles. Her 
victims always admired her, even those who found it im- 
possible to love her because, at some time or other, they 
had happened to be hit and hurt by Mrs. Paraway’s 
racket in her all-forgetting ardor for the game. But 
these were rare. There were not a half dozen in all. 

She was already seated at the breakfast table with her 
husband when Tom entered with his guest, and gave 
Winsor her hand without rising. She had a sharply de- 
fined face, that had always been too thin to be beautiful; 
but was girlish and young even now, with its whimsical 
smile and bright eyes. There was something joyously 
reckless in those eyes at times — the adventurousness of 
a boy of sixteen. 

She was an intellectual m^nad, more than a little drunk 
with books. 

Her husband, opposite her, was Tom at middle age, com- 
pact, strong, clean, a power where Tom was only a prom- 
ise, inflexible, persistent, a great lawyer who under other 
political conditions might have been a great governor; as 
things were, a rich man by right of his own efforts ; alto- 
gether, one of the most noteworthy men in the city, 
though not fifty people knew it. Both Mr. Paraway and 
his wife fitted admirably into their background, which 


BARBARA PICKS A HUSBAND 


53 


was quartered oak and ivory with one brilliant bit of blue 
over the fireplace, where a Monet marine sparkled and 
shone like a solitary sapphire on a beautiful woman’s 
throat. 

The introductions were swiftly done with. “ You don’t 
know in what suspense I have been,” said Mrs. Paraway, 
as she motioned Cleve Winsor to the chair at her right. 
‘‘ I heard two sets of footsteps and two voices — evidently 
peaceful — and then suddenly our steam calliope, going 
mad. I declare, you know, that I can tell Tom’s mood 
of a morning to a degree by the sounds our water system 
emits when he takes his shower. The tremolo he reserves 
for righteous indignation. And this morning I thought 
the tremolo would shake the pictures off the hooks. Now 
you must tell me what you were doing to my poor, defense- 
less boy.” 

Winsor flushed. ‘‘ Nothing at all, Mrs. Paraway. He 
doesn’t look damaged,, does he.^ ” 

“ Oh, but he does,” answered Mrs. Paraway quickly. 
‘‘ And I have the testimony of the calliope, you know. 
The calliope is as near infallibility as anything mortal can 
reach. Who was that clever Frenchman who said that the 
only mysterious things left in a garish world were water- 
pipes and American politics. Shaw or Chesterton or 
George Moore might have said it, but they didn’t. Who 
was it, don’t you remember.? ” 

I’m sorry to say I don’t,” said the victim lamely, 
helping himself to cream of wheat. 

‘‘Don’t you think the French mind is delightful.?” 
Mrs. Paraway went on with apparently unabated enthu- 
siasm. “ It is like the body of a swift runner, lithe and 
wiry and intent on the goal. The English mind is too 
heavy ; and the American mind is too thin and undeveloped 
either for track or field events. It needs a good trainer. 
Do you find time to read much, Mr. Winsor.? ” 

Mrs. Paraway knew perfectly well that he didn’t; but 


54 


BARBARA PICKS A HUSBAND 


it was a part of the game to make your victim squirm. 
Cleve Winsor did not seem to suifer at being forced to 
confess that he read only the papers. “ We’re too busy 
up our way for much reading,” he added, allowing Mrs. 
Paraway to infer that in his judgment reading was a lux- 
ury for the effete, a form of self-indulgence scorned by 
red-blooded men. 

‘‘ Ah ! ” cried Mrs. Paraway, like a hawk pouncing on a 
barnyard cock. “ But don’t you see that it’s reading 
that maketh a full man and that the reason the American 
mind is undeveloped is because it feeds too little on the 
thoughts of the past.^ I should like to edit a weekly some- 
time, something I could make my patient husband endow 
so that I could say what I wanted, independent of adver- 
tisers, questioning all things, particularly the terms and 
slogans we think most unquestionable, fighting for candor 
and clear thinking and an end of sentimentalizing. I 
think a job like that might keep a woman from growing 
old, don’t you, Mr. Winsor? ” 

“ I am sure you don’t need it for that purpose,” said 
Cleve Winsor, happy to be on familiar ground again, and 
smiling benignantly. 

A cloud seemed to pass over the sparkle in Mrs. Para- 
way’s eyes. Cheap flattery was against all the rules of 
the game, even though you fished for it. The game for 
the fish was to nibble and pretend to take the hook, and 
then adroitly to run away with the bait. To swallow the 
hook was merely banal. “ Won’t you help yourself to the 
cream? ” she said. “ Tom has it as usual. Tom always 
does. If cream were whiskey, I believe Tom would not 
have a sober moment.” 

The cream was transferred and for a minute or two 
there was silence. At last, giving up literature as hope- 
less, Mrs. Paraway turned once more to Cleve Winsor, 
determined to test him in politics. 

“ I believe my son said you were from Minnesota? ” 


BARBARA PICKS A HUSBAND 


55 


He admitted the fact. 

How interesting ! ” she cried, pouring his coffee. 

Mr. Paraway and I were just discussing your region 
last night. He insists on being indignant because you 
don’t all jump at and embrace the idea of national pre- 
paredness. But I say that you are perfectly justified. 
You are a nation by yourselves, an island nation like Swit- 
zerland, with your own problems and your own culture. 
I am going to make you judge between us.” 

Mr. Winsor, figuratively speaking, threw up his hands. 
Tom came to his rescue. “ Do give the man a chance to 
eat his breakfast. Mother,” he protested. 

“ But I want to know ! ” 

‘‘ Winsor, don’t you say a word,” cried Tom. “ Mother 
is a glutton of opinions. She eats ’em alive. She’ll have 
you delivering a lecture on feminism in a minute if you 
don’t look out.” There was a malicious glint in Tom’s 
eyes. 

“Oh, are you a feminist, Mr. Winsor.^” asked Mrs. 
Paraway, the insatiable, lifting her delicate eyebrows ever 
so slightly. “ How interesting. I had an idea that male 
feminists could survive only in regions where women do 
not vote.” 

(“My Gawd! What in blue blazes is a feminist .J’” 
cried Cleve Winsor to his soul.) 

“ The women do vote in Minnesota, don’t they ? ” pur- 
sued the lady. “ How does it work ? ” 

“ They don’t vote, I’m glad to say,” answered Lochinvar 
emphatically, with the implication in his voice that a 
ballot in the hands of Mrs. Paraway would wreck the 
country. 

Mrs. Paraway tilted her head to one side and gave Mr. 
Paraway a quick glance to see whether he fully appre- 
ciated their guest’s gallantry. “ Oh ! ” she cried. “ How 
cruel you are ! ” She laughed gayly, and Cleve Winsor 
never suspected that she was laughing at him. “ But it’s 


56 


BARBARA PICKS A HUSBAND 


all right. I am a Horrid Anti myself, a pet and a para- 
site. But I thought the Middle West was sentimentally 
gallant to a man. Deep down, I do believe, I have de- 
rived a certain amount of sentimental satisfaction from 
this supposition.” 

Cleve Winsor looked up and put on a thoughtful ex- 
pression. “ There’s an awful lot of nonsense talked about 
women,” he began casually. 

(“ Help! ” cried Tom to himself.) 

But there was no help. For the rest of the meal Cleve 
Winsor discoursed on Sex, oblivious of the gradual though 
evident petrifaction of the faces of his hosts. For once 
Mrs. Paraway’s conversational art failed her. She could 
not switch him off. Mr. Paraway, above board the pic- 
ture of polite interest, kicked Tom in the shins, unseen, 
a little harder than was necessary, for the crime of bring- 
ing this inconceivable bore to their breakfast-table. 

Once he exchanged a puzzled glance with his wife. 
What was happening to Tom? was the thought in both 
minds. If Tom approved of Cleve Winsor — and he must 
approve of him, for here the man was, without excuse, at 
the most intimate meal of the day — something must be 
wrong with Tom’s soul. 

Cleve Winsor’s discourse rolled on and on. Tom, con- 
scious that his parents must be holding him responsible, 
felt hot and cold by turns. Mr. Paraway’s sudden dis- 
covery that Cleve Winsor was wearing his pet Spring suit 
did not help to clear up the mystery. 

At last the Awful Thing was over. They all rose, and 
Mrs. Paraway, divining that her husband might want a 
minute for his paper, led the orator of the day to her 
Woman’s Shelf in the library, and revenged herself on him 
by discoursing without pause for twenty minutes on Ellen 
Key, Selma Lagerlof, Strindberg, Havelock EUis and Re- 
becca West. 


VIII 


T om did not accompany his mother and their guest. 

The meditations of the early hours of the morning, 
to the accompaniment of Cleve Winsor’s drunken snores, 
had not been without result. He had decided on a course 
of action. This happened to involve his father. An ap- 
pealing glance from that mystified gentleman gave him 
the opportunity he wanted. 

“ Allied drive seems to be on the come,” remarked Mr. 
Paraway, tapping the morning paper. 

“ It won’t get far,” grumbled Tom. ‘‘No Allied drive 
will until the English make up their minds they’re in a 
real war. God help the Dutchmen when they do, though.” 

From a safe distance came the incomprehensible hum 
of a soft voice, discoursing in the library. Mrs. Faraway 
and Cleve Winsor were out of range. 

A slow grin started somewhere under Mr. Paraway’s 
mustache and slowly spread. He laid the paper back on 
the breakfast-table and sank again into his chair. 

“ Friend of yours ? ” he asked. 

“ No,” said Tom, as emphatically as soft speech per- 
mitted. 

Mr. Paraway chuckled at the evident feeling. 
“ Where’d you raise him.^ ” 

“ At the Collingwoods’.” 

“ Oh! Friend of Barbara’s.? ” 

“ I believe so.” 

“ Well, well.” 

“ What does ‘ well, well,’ mean.? ” 

“ Mean.? Why nothing in particular.” 

“ Pardon me. I think it does.” 

57 


58 


BARBARA PICKS A HUSBAND 


‘‘ Why, if you want to know, it occurred to me that he 
would be perfectly adequate for Barbara.” 

“ That isn’t very kind to me.” 

“ You know my feelings about that affair, my boy. It’s 
your own business, of course. I have never interfered 
and I won’t interfere now.” 

Tom sank into the chair Young Lochinvar had vacated. 
“ You simply don’t know Barbara,” he said. 

“ All right. I’ll let it go at that.” 

“ He says they’re engaged.” 

“ Well, that would seem to settle it, wouldn’t it? ” The 
relief in Mr. Paraway’s tones was evident. 

“ Not exactly. I think he’s lying.” 

“ Possibly.” 

There was a pause, then Mr. Paraway added, ‘‘ By the 
way, would you mind telling me why you brought the 
young man to this house to spend the night ” 

“ He was — well — drunk.” 

“ Therefore my Spring suit, I take it ? ” 

« Yes.” 

“ You are rather more decent than most men would 
be to a person who, I suppose, might be considered a 
rival, aren’t you.^ ” 

“ No. But I can’t help having a certain respect for 
any friend of Barbara’s, in spite of appearances, and a 
certain feeling of responsibility for any friend of hers 
who happened at the moment to be — a bit helpless. You 
know how I feel. I’d rather not go into details.” 

“ You are very fond of Barbara, aren’t you.^ ” 

“ I’ve answered that question before.” 

“ It is a question I shall probably continue to ask at 
six months’ intervals.” 

“ You will continue to get the same answer.” 

‘‘ Frankly, I hope to heaven she marries the tailor’s 
dummy.” 

“ Winsor? ” 


BARBARA PICKS A HUSBAND 59 


« Yes.” 

“ She won’t.” 

Mr. Paraway looked at his son for a moment, not with- 
out gratification. “ What are you going to do about it ? ” 

“ In the first place, I’m going to ask you for indefinite 
leave from the office.” 

“ That’s a new departure, Tom.” 

“ I know.” 

“ Where do you wish to go ? ” 

“ Nowhere. I shall stay in New York.” 

“ But what is the idea.'’ ” 

‘‘ I’m going to camp on Barbara’s front stoop, that’s 
all.” 

“ Don’t you think you are a little maudlin ? ” 

« No.” 

‘‘ The munitions case is up to-morrow.” 

‘‘ I know. It’s a lot to ask, but there’s a lot at stake.” 

“ I’ve relied on your help.” 

“ It’s this way. Dad. It’s not aU for myself. Bar- 
bara’s been — well — bowled over a bit by this man, Win- 
sor. I don’t think she quite knows what she’s getting 
into. Anyway, I’m sure she thinks he’s square and fine 
and all that. Of course he isn’t. He’s a good deal of a 
mess. Naturally, I can’t tell Barbara that. If I did, she 
wouldn’t believe me anyway. I’ve got to knuckle down 
and beat him out. I don’t pretend to be so very fine my- 
self, but I have a notion that I can make Barbara happier 
than the other man ever will.” 

“ You’re rather young to marry, Tom.” 

“ I’m twenty-four.” 

You ought to wait two years anyway. You should 
be altogether in your work these years. It’s a great deal 
of a disappointment to me that you should even think 
of letting any sentiment, however fine in itself, interfere 
with your work at this time. You know the opportunity 
you have in my office. We have the reputation there of 


60 


BARBARA PICKS A HUSBAND 


having made more lawyers than any other firm in the coun- 
try, which means, that when we have trained a man for ten 
years, he is fitted to handle pretty nearly any size proposi- 
tion that may come up. Those ten years, of course, are 
tough years. Your mother once asked me, long ago, why, 
under the canopy, we tried so hard to keep people out of 
prison when the ideal of the office seemed to be penal servi- 
tude. It isn’t, of course. Monastic devotion is nearer 
what we demand, and you may remember that celibacy 
is the monastery’s second rule and obedience its first.” 

Mr. Faraway had pushed his chair back from the table 
and was sitting with hands folded and elbows on the arm- 
rests, watching his son. His voice, as well as his whole 
manner, was quiet and unexcited ; not harsh or hard in the 
least; tender, rather; the voice and manner of a prior, 
who loves while he exhorts. 

“ Of course,” Mr. Paraway went on, “ I don’t mean that 
the men in our office never marry. They do, as you know. 
But it’s a tradition that they don’t marry — or even think 
much of marrying — until after the first three or four 
years. They are internes, as it were, in the hospital of 
justice; and a fine woman would not ask a man to shirk 
any of the obligations of this novitiate, this almost sacred 
apprenticeship.” 

“ Barbara has not asked me to shirk anything.” 

“ Not directly, but by implication. Barbara wastes 
half your sleep, and, I suspect, vexes your waking hours 
more than you care to confess to your mother or myself. 
I consider her a vain, spoiled, selfish, little woman. I 
believe you would be very unhappy with her.” 

‘‘ I don’t want to seem stubborn, and you know how 
much I respect your judgment — ” 

A low exclamation escaped Mr. Paraway’s well-guarded 
lips, and fell poignantly on his son’s heart. There was 
more pain in it than he had ever heard his father express 
before. 


BARBARA PICKS A HUSBAND 


61 


“ Dad ! ” cried Tom softly. 

Neither stirred in his chair. They were not nervous 
men. They sat, staring at each other through gray, ex- 
pressive eyes. 

“ I know how you feel,” said Tom at last, in a voice 
slightly strained. “ Work seems to you the most im- 
portant thing for me to attend to at the moment. You 
would be absolutely right under ordinary circumstances. 
But I cared for Barbara before I ever heard of the law. 
I want to marry her. But I don’t think she’ll have me. 
That’s secondary anyway, for the moment. The main 
thing is to keep her from marrying what you call the 
tailor’s dummy.” 

“ My dear boy, the tailor’s dummy is destiny for a girl 
like Barbara. If she doesn’t marry him now, she’ll long 
for him afterwards — not this particular one, possibly, 
but others cut like him. Woman to man, and manikin 
to manikin — the attraction is irresistible.” 

Tom released his knee suddenly. ‘‘ We disagree on the 
fundamental point.” 

“ I am afraid so,” said the elder Paraway quietly. 

There was a pause. Through it, the musical voice of 
Mrs. Paraway could be heard, coming from the library. 
Her revenge was thorough. 

‘‘ I don’t know how long he’s going to stay,” said Tom 
at last. “ Only three days, however, I believe. I can’t 
give him a clear field, as I would have to if I went into the 
munitions case. I’ve got to have those three days off.” 

‘‘ I will not pretend that the winning of the case de- 
pends on you. Of course, it does not. We shall win 
it in any event. Popular feeling is against us but we 
have the law on our side, and I am sufficiently optimistic 
to believe that with sound presentation that is all we shall 
need to win the case. You would be missed from the office, 
of course, but that is not the point. It seems to me that 
a sacred principle is involved — the dignity of a man’s 


62 


BARBARA PICKS A HUSBAND 


work. If you were run down and wanted three months 
off to recuperate in Bermuda or the Rockies, I should 
say, God bless you, go, and get well. But this is a dif- 
ferent matter. You want to desert the office on the eve 
of an important case in order to chase a butterfly.’^ He 
paused, revealing the first outward sign of emotion as he 
unclasped his hands and began thoughtfully to drum the 
knuckles on his left hand with the fingers of his right. “ I 
am afraid, my boy, that I cannot give you the leave of 
absence you want.” 

This time it was the younger Faraway who had himself 
in absolute control. No quaver of voice or muscle re- 
vealed the fact that years of dreams and ambitions were 
being marched to their execution. 

I had made up my mind before I spoke to you about 
it,” he said. ‘‘ I understand your point of view, and I 
would only be insulting you if I tried to make clear how 
much I respect it. That goes without saying. You are 
the biggest man I have ever known or ever expect to know. 
I realize perfectly that in opposing you I am cutting my- 
self off from a career that, I suppose, was fairly assured. 
And I realize, too, that I am hurting you more than — 
than I imagined I could ever bring myself to hurt any one. 
But even this seems less important to me at the moment 
than — than chasing a butterfly, as you call it. It seems 
to me necessary just now that I give my undivided atten- 
tion to my friendship for Barbara — to call it nothing 
else. I think that if Barbara were a man you would un- 
derstand me better, and would agree that sometimes it may 
be wise to sacrifice many things to stand by a friend. As 
it is, you think I am just infatuated, and the whole matter 
looks vulgar and self-indulgent.” He paused, then, on 
an impulse, cried softly, “ I wonder if you couldn’t trust 
me.^ ” 

“ Of course, I trust you, Tom. Your judgment is 
sound enough, as far as you see. But you don’t see far 


BARBARA PICKS A HUSBAND 


63 


enough. You can’t. You haven’t known enough women 
— socially or in court. I believe absolutely that mar- 
riage with Barbara would be a tragedy for you. My dear 
boy, quite apart from the principles involved, which would 
be enough to determine my position, how can I connive 
at what I firmly believe would be your own destruction ” 

Tom stared at his father unhappily. “ You persist in 
seeing only the froth of Barbara. You are like her 
mother in that respect. Barbara knows you are looking 
only for froth, so she blows it in your face.” 

Again silence, broken only by the distant music of Mrs. 
Paraway’s avenging discourse. 

“ I suppose,” Tom added, “ I might as well resign from 
the office now.” 

Mr. Paraway clutched the arms of his chair. “ My 
dear boy,” he said, almost in a whisper. “ Reconsider. 
Reconsider.” 

“ I reconsidered a hundred times over between two and 
four this morning,” said Tom. “ My mind is absolutely 
made up.” 

The elder Paraway said nothing for what seemed to 
both a long while, then he rose and quietly spoke. “ This 
is too bad,” he said. ‘‘ It will make your mother very 
unhappy.” 

Tom rose likewise. “ I am afraid so.” 

They shook hands in silence. Then Mr. Paraway bent 
down, picked up the morning paper from the breakfast 
table and started for the library. At the door he turned. 

“ Will you continue to live here.^^ ” 

‘‘ As you wish.” 

‘‘ I should prefer it.” 

Very good.” 

Suddenly the elder took a step backward into the dining- 
room. “ Tom ? ” 

«Yes.?” 

Mr. Paraway looked into his son’s eyes, searching for 


64 


BARBARA PICKS A HUSBAND 


some sign of relenting. But he found none. Tom never 
knew what he had intended to say. What he actually did 
say was, “ Get back my Spring suit, will you, old man.? 
Spring wouldn’t be the same without it.” 

Tom grinned, not very successfully. They interrupted 
Mrs. Paraway’s lecture with what appeared to be the end 
of a long discussion on the position of the Allies in 
Flanders. 


IX 


T en minutes later, Tom and Winsor climbed three 
flights of stairs to Tom’s quarters, to find a suit- 
case for Winsor’s clothes of the evening before; and Mr. 
and Mrs. Paraway achieved a moment alone together in 
the sitting-room, one flight up. It was a beautiful room, 
cool in color, simple in furnishings, a miracle of taste 
that seemed almost instinctive, from its alabaster mantel 
to its airy hangings, gray or lavender or both. Almost 
instinctive — not quite. If art is long, this room was 
in the middle of the journey — far beyond the carelessly 
punctilious daffodils, the arts-and-crafts gewgaws, the 
dozen deliberate effects of the late convert to the world 
that is artistic. It was a pleasant protest against the 
commonplace and a perfect frame for Mrs. Paraway. 
The trouble lay in the fact that one was conscious of its 
function as a frame. Every one entering the room ad- 
mired it, but no one ever felt that he knew the deeps of 
Mrs. Paraway any better for having seen it. Now and 
then, after a difficult day unsnarling the woes of his clients, 
Mr. Paraway would be irritated almost to the point of 
explosion by the subtle artistry of it, the unreality, the 
irrelevancy to the struggles of men. Once he did protest, 
expressing a desire for some plain vulgarity. His wife 
told him his nerves were unstrung ; which was true enough. 

Mr. Paraway opened the conference. “ Mother,” he 
remarked in matter-of-fact tones, “ Tom has decided to 
leave the office.” 

Mrs. Paraway was amazed. ‘‘ Oh, dear! ” she exclaimed 
with an emphasis that made the mild exclamation sound 
almost like an oath. “ Tell me. Why — under the sun ” 

65 


66 


BARBARA PICKS A HUSBAND 


He told her in half a dozen sentences. A look in which 
sorrow, annoyance and perplexity were fused and made 
iridescent by her indomitable smile, crossed her features, 
arching her eyebrows and wrinkling her brow. 

“ What a nuisance ! ” she said. 

“ Nuisance,” he remarked, “ is conservative.” 

He sat down in his particular arm-chair and began 
drumming his knuckles. The smile faded from Mrs. Far- 
away ’s face and the perplexity only remained. She knew 
that Mr. Paraway’s knuckles were to him what banging 
doors were to men of less control. 

“ I suppose he will marry her,” remarked Mr. Paraway, 
looking old. 

“ There’s many a slip.” 

“ Not with men of Tom’s caliber. That’s why he’s such 
a good lawyer. He imagines all possible slips beforehand 
and prevents them.” 

“ Could you postpone the hearing of the munitions 
case.^ ” 

“ I suppose I could. But I shall not do it. Why? ” 

“ Tom will be a very good lawyer in a few years. You 
really should hold on to him. Have it postponed a week. 
This whole matter will be over by that time. Give him 
his three days off.” 

“ I can’t. It’s a matter of principle.” 

‘‘ Who was it who said that principles are the tapping 
cane of the blind? ” 

“ Whoever he was, my dear, he was a fool.” 

“ Crushed ! The clever line was my own.” 

But Mr. Paraway was not in a mood for clever lines. 
‘‘ Besides,” he went on, “ I can’t help him get a girl I know 
will make him miserable.” 

“ I think,” mused Mrs. Paraway, “ I think that Barbara 
will marry Mr. Winsor.” 

‘‘ Do you really? ” 

“ I really do.” 


BARBARA PICKS A HUSBAND 


67 


‘‘ He has charm.’^ 

That piece of information had a curious effect on Mr. 
Paraway. His eyes and mouth opened wide in amazement 
and incredulity. After a moment a puzzled look suc- 
ceeded, as though he were trying to solve a conundrum. 
“ Well, well, well,” he murmured at last, giving it up. 

Mrs. Paraway was laughing at him. A great deal of 
charm,” she persisted. 

I’ll take your word for it.” 

“ In fact, when he wasn’t talking, I found him decidedly 
attractive.” 

“ Well, well.” 

He tried to flirt with me. And I declare, I do be- 
lieve, if I hadn’t forced myself to go on talking him to 
death, he would have succeeded.” 

Mr. Paraway was chuckling softly. I am a babe in 
arms,” he confessed. “ I know nothing about the pos- 
sibilities of the human mind.” 

Have you ever heard of sex attraction? ” 

I believe so,” he answered, humbly. It sounds fa- 
miliar.” 

“ Well, I should say that Barbara Collingwood’s fu- 
ture husband has it.” 

“ How very interesting ! ” he murmured, as though to 
himself. ‘‘ How very interesting.” 

I will try to keep Tom busy these next few days,” Mrs. 
Paraway went on quietly, “ though it isn’t really neces- 
sary. I am quite confident that Barbara will marry Mr. 
Winsor.” 

‘‘ I leave you in charge, my dear,” said Mr. Paraway, 
rising. “ You have a head.” 

How about the munitions case ? ” 

“ I have told you my decision in that matter, my dear.” 

“ But you do want to give the boy his chance? ” 

‘‘ I tried to. He has chosen not to take it.” 


68 


BARBARA PICKS A HUSBAND 


But, David, listen. This whole foolish matter about 
the girl will be over in a week.” 

“ Do you think so ? ” 

I am sure of it.” 

“ That can make no difference in Tom’s position in 
regard to the office. I can’t imagine that he would want 
it to make any difference.” 

“ You lawyers ! ” cried Mrs. Faraway in mock despair. 
Good-by, my dear.” 

You are adamant.^ ” 

‘‘ On that matter, yes.” 

He kissed her and left the house hurriedly to evade Tom 
and the young man who had charm. Fifteen minutes 
later those two likewise departed. As they were going, 
Mrs. Paraway asked Tom to meet her at Brentano’s at 
twelve-thirty to help her select some books for a bride-to- 
be, and thereafter to lunch with her at the Cosmopolitan 
Club. He demurred a little and begged her to excuse him. 
But Mrs. Paraway pleaded. His father had told her 
about his decision to leave the office, she said, and she felt 
that he owed her an opportunity to talk things over. 

“ Talking won’t do any good. Mother, he said. “ I’ve 
made up my mind and the thing is settled. Really.” 

« We’ve always been good friends, Tom,” she whis- 
pered in his ear as he kissed her good-by. “ But do as 
you think right, of course.” 

He did not answer. 

Mrs. Paraway loved to play games. She was excellent 
at cards and at chess, but she enjoyed most the battledore 
of ideas and that more absorbing chess in which the coun- 
ters live and breathe. Quite unknown to himself, Tom had 
for years been the principal counter in a little game of 
Mrs. Paraway’s which one might call, “ Celibacy ; or. 
Keeping Tom Unmarried.” 

The three main counters were Tom, Barbara and Ruth 
Torrey, with Delia Kern and Chester Howell as auxiliaries. 


BARBARA PICKS A HUSBAND 


69 


The object of the game was, as we have indicated, keeping 
Tom a bachelor, and the method was to play off Ruth and 
Barbara against each other in such a way that he would 
marry neither. Whenever Barbara seemed to engage 
more of Tom’s time than seemed to Mrs. Paraway neces- 
sary, she invited Ruth to theater-parties and made much 
of her; when Ruth, encouraged by this, began to deluge 
Tom with friendly little notes, inviting him to everything 
under the sun, Mrs. Paraway countered with a dinner for 
Barbara. The game was a little cruel. Barbara, confi- 
dent of Tom’s affection, enjoyed the party and thought no 
more of it, but Ruth, tantalized like a mouse by a cat, 
suffered. Delia and Chester Howell were used merely as 
parsley round the roast on all occasions, whoever hap- 
pened to be the roast. Mrs. Paraway had a notion in 
the back of her head that with skillful management, one of 
the girls might in the fullness of time be married off to 
Chester Howell. As for the other, some one was bound 
sooner or later to appear and fall in love with her. Mrs. 
Paraway had great confidence in the power of intellect. 
Like many intellectual people, moreover, she believed 
firmly in luck. Cleve Winsor was sheer luck. Contrary 
to Mrs. Para way’s expectations, she was not at all un- 
happy after breakfast that morning. She felt that her 
nice little solitaire was going to “ come out,” because of 
the sudden, unexpected turning up of the ace of hearts. 

She telephoned to Ruth and made an appointment to 
meet her at Brentano’s at twelve forty-five. Ruth was 
audibly thrilled, for Mrs. Paraway was gracious as only 
Mrs. Paraway could be. 

half promised Dad to dine with him,” Ruth said, 
reluctant to decline. 

‘‘ Do come,” cried Mrs. Paraway. “ I think Tom will 
be there, and it will be so jolly.” 

Oh, I will ! Thank you so much, Mrs. Paraway. I’m 
sure Dad will understand.” 


70 


BARBARA PICKS A HUSBAND 


So far so good. 

Mrs. Paraway, with her finger on the hook of the re- 
ceiver, pondered for a moment, staring at a reproduction 
of Georgione’s “ Concert ” that hung above the couch. 
Then she allowed her ardor for the game to betray her 
into one of those little lapses into which she had a way of 
tripping about once every three years. For she delib- 
erately telephoned Mrs. Clipston, whom she herself, as far 
back as the Spanish War, had dubbed a “ machine-gun 
gossip,” and after a long discussion concerning certain 
Red Cross work in which they were both involved, inci- 
dentally remarked how very interesting it was that Bar- 
bara Collingwood was engaged to a man from Minneapolis. 

“ Mr. Winsor told Tom himself,” she added. “ Isn’t 
it charming.^ I am so glad.” 

Having cast this crumb upon the waters, she hung up 
the receiver and energetically plunged into that less fas- 
cinating but no less exacting game of keeping house. She 
played it to a finish ; whereupon she stretched herself com- 
fortably on the couch in the sitting-room and began the 
game of literature with six volumes of American poetry 
fresh from the bookstore on the floor beside her, and the 
seventh in her hand. She regarded all seven with some 
distrust, none of them having yet been acclaimed by the 
London Spectator, 

Tom, meanwhile, accompanying Cleve Winsor to the 
St. James, where there was to be an exchange of clothes, 
laid his own plans. The thing of first importance, he de- 
termined, was to stick like a leech to Young Lochinvar. 
That gentleman must have no opportunity of seeing Bar- 
bara. At the risk of offending his mother, Tom decided 
that he would not allow Cleve Winsor out of his sight. 
Cleve Winsor must also come to Brentano’s, and also lunch 
at the Cosmopolitan Club. 

They effected the exchange of garments successfully and 
sent Mr. Paraway’s pet Spring suit home by special mes- 


BARBARA PICKS A HUSBAND 


71 


senger. It was ten o’clock by that time and Winsor re- 
marked that he had an important engagement with a 
friend of his father’s. Tom was suspicious, but he recog- 
nized the name and expressed his willingness to accompany 
Winsor to the door of the great financier’s office. At the 
subway entrance in Columbus Circle, however, Winsor had 
a change of heart. 

“ Shoot ! ” he cried. ‘‘ I’ll go see him to-morrow.” 

‘‘ Good enough ! ” cried Tom. That’ll give me a 
chance to show you some of those new makes of cars I 
was telling you about. This is Bubble Alley here.” 

Winsor was obviously not enthusiastic, but nevertheless 
he followed Tom down Broadway. They examined three 
or four makes, Winsor looking at his watch at three min- 
ute intervals ; Tom alert, on guard. He was quite certain 
that Winsor had an appointment. He was equally certain 
that the appointment was with Barbara. It occurred to 
him that it might not be impossible to kidnap Cleve 
Winsor. 

He suggested that they try out one of the cars. 

Winsor was not greatly interested, but agreed, after 
some urging, and climbed into the tonneau from the off 
side, which was unnecessary but did not strike either Tom 
or the chauffeur as noteworthy until a minute or so after 
they had started. In the middle of the Circle they became 
aware that the off rear tire was flat. The chauffeur swore 
and looked for the nail, Tom, full of sympathy, at his 
side. They discovered no nail. But when they started 
to take their seats again and to return reluctantly to the 
garage, they made a discovery of a different sort. Cleve 
Winsor had taken French leave. 

They found an irate manager awaiting them. It 
seemed that a passerby had observed a handsome young 
man pushing a penknife gently into the brand new tire of a 
brand new car, and the action had seemed to him eccentric 
enough to justify his stepping into the show room and 


BARBARA PICKS A HUSBAND 


n 

telling the manager about it. The manager was in a con- 
dition of mind approaching apoplexy. He threatened to 
have Tom arrested, but finally cooled sufficiently to agree 
that the more profitable course would be to accept the 
price of the tire. This he finally did, charging twenty 
per cent, extra for wounded pride. Tom decided that 
the shoe would do for his own car and was dismayed when 
he found it was just enough off-size to be absolutely useless 
to him. He therefore sold it back to the manager at half 
price and departed, convinced that plotting was expensive 
and that as a kidnapper he was no success whatever. 

The time was now eleven-thirty. Cleve Winsor was 
God-only -knew-where, and in an hour, Tom realized, he 
himself was due at Brentano’s. He hunted for a tele- 
phone booth. While he had been with Winsor, his en- 
deavor had been to keep that gentleman away from tele- 
phones, but the deprivation had been as great for him as 
for Winsor. In a minute he was talking to Mrs. Col- 
lingwood. Barbara had had a miserable night, it seemed, 
and was still in bed. I suppose you’re busy at the 
office ? ” she added. 

“ I’ve taken a few days off,” he answered, as though he 
were in the habit of doing that sort of thing. 

But Mrs. Collingwood knew him and was amazed. 
“You’re not ill.^ ” she asked solicitously. 

He laughed. “No. I merely thought I’d trail Bee’s 
new friend a bit. But I’m no good. He got away from 
me.” 

“ Can you take lunch with me ? ” 

“ Sorry. Can’t do it. Engagement with Mother.” 

“ Where are you now.^^ ” 

Fifty-sixth Street and Broadway.” 

She begged him to run in for just a minute. It seemed 
she had something very important to tell him. Her voice 
was ominous. He agreed to come at once. 


X 


B arbara awoke at ten in the morning, fully aware 
of the nature of the dramatic close of her medita- 
tions. Her body was limp, her head ached. She wanted 
to sleep forever. The three suitors, remembering the 
vivacious lady who seemed to shine in all directions at 
once, indomitably bright, would have been puzzled in their 
youthful inexperience to see her lying there, so utterly 
without fire, with that pathetic down-curve of her lips and 
that worried look in her eyes. Possibly they might have 
adored her all the more thus — for at her best she was 
disconcerting, bewildering, and there in her laces and pil- 
lows she was only piteous. She had the happy gift, more- 
over, of keeping her color even in misery. 

She was vaguely conscious that she had been dreaming 
of Cleve Winsor, but the details had slipped or were even 
now slipping from memory. One minute she was still 
clinging to their rags and tatters, the next they were ir- 
revocably gone. She had a faint notion that she had 
dreamt that she was married to him, for she was aware 
of a decided relief, now that she was awake, to find that 
she was still single. 

She remembered her decision of the early hours with 
satisfaction and some pride. It was a rather big de- 
cision for a girl of her age to make, while suitors were 
abounding and youth and beauty still in their first fresh- 
ness. She had always suspected that there was in her a 
certain bigness that was not in Delia or Ruth. Now she 
was sure of it. She felt a certain exaltation such as a 
girl might feel who had decided to take the veil. She, too, 

73 


74 


BARBARA PICKS A HUSBAND 


was in a sense taking the veil, and the fact that she would 
go on outwardly living the same life, no one knowing that 
she was vowed forever to Nobody-at-all, made her decision 
all the more praiseworthy. No one would understand her, 
of course; least of all, her mother. There was glory in 
being misunderstood. Her mother was probably off 
somewhere now, completely forgetful of her miserably sick 
daughter. 

“ Mother ! ” she called plaintively, half hoping that she 
would not be heard. 

Mrs. Collingwood, faithful servitor, had evidently been 
awaiting the summons at the door, for she appeared like 
the genii, on the instant. If she expected any confidences, 
she was doomed to disappointment, for Barbara said noth- 
ing except, ‘‘ Oh, I just wondered if you were there? ” with 
a finality meant to suggest that the interview was over. 
She wanted no breakfast, she added ; she wanted to be left 
alone. 

‘‘ I wish you wouldn’t draw back into your shell this 
way,” Mrs. Collingwood said, as calmly as she could. “ I 
wish you would talk things over with me.” 

“ I do talk things over. But we don’t get anywhere. 
I’m sick to death of talk-fests. We disagree fundamen- 
tally. I know what you think of me.” 

“ What do you think that I think of you, Barbara ? ” 

‘‘ You think I’m terribly depraved.” 

My dear! Of course, I don’t think you’re depraved.” 

Yes, you do. Perhaps you don’t think that you do, 
but you do.” 

I think you’re a little reckless sometimes.” 

“ It amounts to the same thing.” 

“ That’s perfect nonsense,” cried Mrs. CoUingwood in 
her emphatic way. “ And you know it.” 

“ I wish you were like other mothers.” 

“If you mean spineless and weak-kneed, I’m glad I’m 
not.” 


BARBARA PICKS A HUSBAND 


75 


Barbara turned over on her side, away from her 
mother. “ I feel so sick. I wish you’d leave me alone.” 

Wonderful nurse that she was, sympathetic, untiring, 
Mrs. Collingwood lacked, it seemed, the ultimate quality 
of the perfect watcher at bedsides. She sometimes seemed 
to lack imagination. She could not always divine her 
patient’s symptoms. They had to be explained to her, 
and even then she did not always understand. On this 
occasion, for instance, it never occurred to her that Bar- 
bara’s nerves might be on edge, and for that reason some- 
thing in Barbara might be ready to shriek for an end of 
argument. 

“ Tell me just one thing,” persisted Mrs. Collingwood 
in a voice slightly hard. “Are you engaged to Mr. Win- 
sor.^ ” 

Barbara turned slowly in her bed and gazed at her 
mother. The blood slowly suffused her face; her lips 
tightened until the thin line of her mouth seemed almost 
white in contrast to the flaming cheeks. She hated her 
mother that moment with a passionate hatred. 

She hesitated. Out of the past, the spirit of her old 
aspiring self seemed to reach forth a restraining hand. 
The new Barbara thrust it back. 

“Are you engaged to him, Barbara.?” Mrs. Colling- 
wood persisted. 

The lie direct came with difficulty, but it came. 

“ Yes,” said Barbara, and the next instant would have 
given anything she possessed to have been able to recall 
the lie. She turned away her face, biting her lips, on the 
verge of tears. 

“ Barbara ! ” cried Mrs. Collingwood. “ How could 
you .? ” 

Barbara turned once more, hardened by her mother’s 
evident despair; her cool, blue eyes regarded Mrs. Colling- 
wood with appraising keenness. “ I wish you had more 
sense,” she said. “ I wish you would leave me alone.” 


76 


BARBARA PICKS A HUSBAND 


“ But, my dear ! This man. He’s wicked. He’s im- 
moral. It’s plain as the nose on your face.” 

“ He’s nothing of the sort. You don’t understand. 
You take a prejudice against people and then imagine 
they are everything under the sun that’s bad. You’re 
narrow, and he’s just a type you don’t understand. He’s 
exactly as fine as your pet, Tom Paraway. And he’s got 
more gumption. He’s lived out in the open and dug for 
himself, and Tom is just papa’s boy.” 

“ But, Barbara, he lied to us. You know. About the 
gloves.” 

‘‘ That’s just like you, to make every little thing a great 
moral issue. That wasn’t a lie. That was just an ex- 
cuse. He wasn’t trying to deceive anybody. He wanted 
to see me and he just had to say something to save his 
face. You’re always slamming people you don’t under- 
stand.” 

“My dear, you don’t call Mr. Winsor subtle.? He’s 
just a simple, everyday, handsome rake.” 

She turned and energetically pushed up the shades. 
The sun shone mildly into the room and gave sudden life to 
the prevalent pink of wall and furniture and hangings. 
Mrs. Collingwood, strong, capable, efficient, set a dozen 
things to rights in the minute or so that elapsed before she 
discovered that Barbara was weeping. She went to the 
bedside and spoke with that proverbial gentleness which 
is also firm. 

“ I wouldn’t cry about it, Barbara. There are things 
it’s much better to discuss before it is too late, than 
after.” 

The weeping ceased for a moment. Barbara turned 
her head and gazed with cruel coldness into her mother’s 
face. Mrs. Collingwood bit her lips to keep herself from 
tears. In an instant she had herself in control and was 
kneeling at the bedside. 

“ Barbara, dear,” she said. “ I have to do what seems 


BARBARA PICKS A HUSBAND 


77 


to me right, and I can’t see you doing foolish things with- 
out trying to hold you back. When you’re a mother, 
you’ll begin to understand. And you know, Barbara, I 
may stop — being in your way — almost any time. I 
don’t say that to upset you — only — ” 

Yes, you do,” Barbara protested. You’re just sen- 
timentalizing. You’re taking unfair advantage of me. 
You’re just playing on my feelings.” 

“ No. I am not playing on your feelings.” 

Once more, Barbara burst into tears. “ Stop nagging 
me ! ” she cried. Stop nagging me ! I won’t listen to 
you any more ! ” She thrust her fingers in her ears, sob- 
bing, “ I won’t listen to you 1 ” 

She sobbed a long time, but Mrs. Collingwood did not 
budge from her place beside the bed. She was not weep- 
ing, but no one, seeing the two faces there, would have had 
any doubt whose suffering was the more intense. 

At eleven that morning appeared Delia, alluringly at- 
tired and coiffured, with a rose in her cheeks so exquisitely 
faint that only a cold-blooded expert like Barbara would 
have had the heart to suspect it. Barbara was thoroughly 
glad to see her, for she was gay and enthusiastic, never a 
strain on the intellect and a very zephyr from the per- 
fumed gardens of Araby. She had to come and talk over 
the theater-party, she cried, and forthwith did so. She 
had the gift of ready speech; in other words, she could 
prattle at an appalling rate, and the things she said in 
fifteen minutes would fill a long but not very interesting 
chapter. The only notable point about her discourse was 
its construction, for to that extent it was a work of art. 
Its movement was centripetal. That is, it was like a nut- 
shell in a whirlpool, going round and round but ever nearer 
and nearer the central point. Suddenly it plunged. 

“ I think Mr. Winsor is perfectly wonderful ! ” cried 
Delia. 


78 


BARBARA PICKS A HUSBAND 


Barbara, still in bed, passed her slender fingers through 
her hair, brushing it back from her brow. 

“ I told you,” she remarked as unconcernedly as she 
could. 

‘‘ Of course you did, you dear. And of course I didn’t 
believe you. But you were right, all right. I envy you 
awfully.” 

‘‘ He is pretty nice,” Barbara admitted. 

“ He’s the most wonderful thing I ever saw ! Awfully 
romantic-looking, don’t you think They say he’s always 
hated women up to now. Because he knows so much about 
them. Isn’t that cruel? But he told somebody that. I 
should think you’d feel terribly flattered.” 

Barbara was certain that moment that she did feel very 
much flattered. “Why?” she asked innocently. 

Delia, sitting at the edge of the bed, clutched both her 
shoulders and gently shook her. “You goose! You 
know why. He’s crazy about you. A blind man could 
see it.” 

“ Silly ! ” murmured Barbara, affectionately. 

Delia, still holding her shoulders, bent over her so that 
the rim of her jaunty hat touched Barbara’s forebead. 
“ Now tell me, sly one,” she whispered, “ Are you en- 
gaged? ” 

Barbara’s eyelids fluttered under the eager gaze; and 
hesitated. It was not a question of lying or not lying. 
She comforted herself in the matter of that other lie by 
telling herself that she really did not know herself whether 
she was engaged to Cleve Winsor or not. 

“ Wouldn’t you like to know? ” she said, 

Delia was peeved at that, and drew away, shrugging 
her shoulders, “ Perhaps there’s hope for me then,” she 
remarked, but did not explain exactly wherein the hope 
lay. 

Barbara tried to puzzle out what Delia, who was not 
naturally abstruse, had in her mind. She had about 


BARBARA PICKS A HUSBAND 


79 


decided to tell her not to be a silly and to explain, when 
Ruth entered, bearing roses. She had evidently tele- 
phoned early in the morning and, having heard that Bar- 
bara was under the weather, had depleted the vases an 
adoring admirer, namely her father, kept filled for her in 
the vague hope that a plethora of roses would somehow 
counteract the lure of man; for he was a widower and 
Ruth was the lens in which all light for him was focussed. 

Ruth’s conversation proved also to be centripetal. It 
began with theater-parties in general, went round and 
round in the same way as Delia’s, though with less bewil- 
dering speed, and at the proper moment plunged. 

“ Barbara, I think Mr. Winsor is wonderful,” cried 
Ruth. 

Now Barbara loved these friends of hers very much, but 
she had a canny, questioning mind, and it struck her as 
curious that both Delia and Ruth should go to such elab- 
orate pains to assure her casually that they admired her 
taste. They had admired her taste before without think- 
ing it necessary to preamble fifteen minutes round and 
round the hot porridge. She closed a door inside of her, 
feeling suddenly cold and lonely, as she realized that she 
could not confide even in these friends who had seemed so 
close — not in her mother, because her mother was nat- 
urally antagonistic and simply would not understand ; not 
in her friends, because they had fish of their own to fry. 
Life seemed stark and desperate for a moment. Then she 
thought of Cleve Winsor, and it seemed to her that Spring 
had come to her frozen fields. 

In the adjoining room, meanwhile, Mrs. Collingwood, 
miserable in the thought of Barbara’s confession, and 
quite unconscious that in her dread lest Barbara marry 
Cleve Winsor, she had actually helped considerably to 
bring about that consummation — Mrs. Collingwood was 
telephoning. When, a quarter of an hour before, she 


80 


BARBARA PICKS A HUSBAND 


had told Tom that she had important news which she felt 
he must hear, she had not yet known how very serious that 
news was. For since, in quick succession, three friends 
had called her up, congratulating her on Barbara’s “ in- 
teresting ” engagement. “ Interesting ” was the word. 
No one knew Mr. Winsor. 

Mrs. Collingwood’s answer in each case was frank. 

Don’t ask me anything about it, my dear. Barbara 
hasn’t told me a thing except the mere fact. I can’t im- 
agine how the rumor should have got started. I’d rather 
you didn’t say anything about it at present. It hasn’t 
been announced. Really — please — ” And so on. She 
turned to David, King of Israel, in the intervals between 
calls, as she always did when she had problems to solve. 

Tom Paraway appeared, and was ushered directly into 
Mrs. Collingwood’s sitting-room. 

“ Tom,” said Mrs. Collingwood, “ I wanted to tell you 
something before you heard it from some one else. Bar- 
bara is engaged to Mr. Winsor.” 

He took the blow with apparent calm. I seem to be 
a poor guesser,” he remarked. 

« Why.? ” 

“ Winsor told me this morning they were engaged. I 
guessed that he was lying.” 

“ You’ve seen him this morning? ” 

‘‘ Yes.” 

‘‘ How did that happen? ” 

‘‘ He spent the night at our house.” 

You didn’t leave here together.” 

“No. We met by accident.” 

“ But do tell me how you happened to take him to your 
house. Do you really like him? Am I all wrong? Or is 
he really fine ? ” 

Tom gave her an expurgated account of the proceed- 
ings of the previous night, shrouding the final incidents in 
a veil of words, so that without actually lying, he made 


BARBARA PICKS A HUSBAND 


81 


Winsor’s acceptance of his hospitality plausible, without 
revealing the actual reason that prompted him to offer it. 
Only a lawyer could have circumnavigated the truth so 
gracefully without either lying or giving away his case. 
Young Lochinvar emerged from the tale with all flags 
flying. Tom salved his conscience with the mental obser- 
vation that Mrs. Collingwood had enough to worry about 
for the time being without the added anxiety of knowing 
that her future son-in-law had been mildly drunk early that 
very morning. 

Do you know, Tom,” said Mrs. Collingwood, “ I 
almost hate that man.? ” 

He laughed softly. “ Almost.? ” 

She saw the joke. ‘‘ I don’t want to hate anybody. 
But to think that Barbara is engaged to — that I ” 

“ Are you sure she is engaged .? ” 

“ She told me herself.” 

That ought to be authentic,” he answered after a 
pause. 

‘‘ And, Tom, in some ’mysterious fashion, it’s got out.” 

“ Got out .? ” he asked sharply. 

“ Everybody seems to know it. My telephone’s been 
busy. Mrs. Jardine, Mrs. Halliwell, Mrs. Clipston — ” 

Mrs. Clipston.? ” 

Yes. They all seem to have got the news from Mrs. 
Clipston. Do you know, I think I’ll call her up, and find 
out where she got it.” 

A minute later she returned the receiver to the hook 
with a hard light in her eyes. 

Tom rose sharply to his feet. “ You needn’t tell me,” 
he said. “ I heard the name.” 

How do you account for it, Tom.? ” 

He was standing by a table, emptying and shutting a 
box of matches. In a moment the contents were scattered 
over the floor. He gathered them together slowly and re- 
placed the box on the table before he spoke. 


82 


BARBARA PICKS A HUSBAND 


“Mother has made a mistake in judgment, I should 
say. I am sure she told Mrs. Clipston deliberately. 
Mother isn’t a gossip.” 

“ I know she isn’t, Tom,” cried Mrs. Collingwood 
warmly, more sorry by far for him than for herself. 
“ She just doesn’t like Barbara, and I can’t blame her for 
that. Barbara is frivolous.” 

“ Father and Mother don’t know Barbara, that’s all.” 

Mrs. Collingwood bit her lip. Tears seemed to threaten 
her cherished composure so much more frequently these 
days than formerly, she thought, as she fought them 
back. The night and the morning had been difficult, even 
for her who throve on difficulties, as a rule. She felt 
weary with a weariness beyond any she had ever known. 
Tom watched her and his eyes seemed to deepen as he 
watched. She was conscious of it and was grateful. 

He told her the whole story of his interview with his 
father. “ I told him Winsor had said he and Barbara were 
engaged and I told him also that I had a strong notion 
Winsor was bluffing. He told Mother, of course, for 
Mother naturally had to know why I had decided to leave 
the oflSce. Mother evidently thought I might change my 
mind if the engagement could be settled and fixed, as a 
public announcement might fix it. It was quite outrag- 
eous of her.” 

Mrs. Collingwood rose suddenly and laughed a hard 
little laugh. “ Your father and mother must be relieved 
to know that you have been saved from Barbara. I am 
sure, if you were my son, I should feel exactly the same.” 

He did not answer. He was utterly miserable and, 
after all, there was nothing to say. 

While this conversation was proceeding in Mrs. Col- 
lingwood’s room, Barbara, in the room adjoining, was 
lying back in her pillows, finding that she had not much 
except monosyllables to contribute to the discussion of her 


BARBARA PICKS A HUSBAND 


83 


lover’s charms ; and she spent her energy in trying to dis- 
cover what object these friends of hers had in dilating at 
such length upon Cleve Winsor. For dilate they did, for 
half an hour. They picked him apart and they put him 
together again. They discussed his face, his words, his 
walk, his manners, his past, his not impossible future ; and 
always favorably. Barbara’s bewilderment deepened. 
Ruth was not given to gossip ; and Delia, who was Gossip 
Incarnate, was not, to put it mildly, invariably flattering 
in her comments. Ruth and Delia, for some reason, were 
evidently eager that she should marry Cleve Winsor. 

Why.? She became vague in the use of her monosyl- 
lables, and the girls, thinking her tired, rose to go. She 
thrust the interesting topic into a pigeonhole of her brain 
for future examination ; and disclaimed weariness. 

Thereupon, Delia suggested lunch at Maillard’s for the 
three of them. But Ruth, it seemed, was lunching at the 
Cosmopolitan Club with a friend, and Barbara thought 
she really ought to stay home with her mother, for once. 

Oh, sly one ! ” cried Delia, kissing her. Have a good 
time, sweetie.” 

My dear, I think he’s perfectly wonderful ! ” cried 
Ruth, as their cheeks met. 

They went and for a minute Barbara lay motionless, 
pondering. The time was noon, and it suddenly occurred 
to her that between Act One and Two of the musical 
atrocity of the evening before, she had agreed to meet 
Cleve Winsor at an art-shop on Thirty-fourth Street 
promptly at eleven o’clock. She had been emphatic about 
the promptly. She disliked waiting for people. From 
the remote distance of early dawn, Nobody-at-all emerged 
an instant. He seemed to her a grotesque, absurd figure ; 
and yet she hesitated, thoughtfully considering. 

At this point, Mrs. Collingwood entered. Tom’s 
here,” she said shortly. 

Nobody-at-all was sent off into the domain of poor 


84 


BARBARA PICKS A HUSBAND 


jokes where he belonged. “How nice!” cried Barbara. 
“ Tell him I’m awfully sorry I can’t see him, but I’m still 
in bed. Hello, Tom! ” she called cheerfully. 

He answered from a distance. 

“ How do you like Minneapolis ? ” she shouted. 

“ How do you expect me to like him? ” 

“ Very much, of course.” 

There was a moment’s silence. “ Well, you’ve got an- 
other guess coming,” Tom called back. 

“ Do rig yourself up in some way,” Mrs. Collingwood 
suggested. “ He’s really anxious to see you. And he 
wants you to have lunch with him and his mother.” 

(There are more ways than one of staving off Brother 
Winsor, had been Tom’s thought.) 

Barbara wrinkled her nose. “ That highbrow? ” she 
exclaimed in a scornful whisper. 

Mrs. Collingwood was not in a mood to combat that 
or any other, even more vindictive description of Mrs. 
Paraway. “ Tom’s got an engagement with his mother 
at one, but he says he’ll wait here all afternoon if neces- 
sary, as he intends to see you.” 

A queer, rebellious light shot across Barbara’s eyes. 
But her words were agreeable enough. “ Well, if he’s so 
stubborn, and can wait half an hour — ” 

“ I’m sure he’ll wait. Can’t I help you ? ” 

“ No,” said Barbara, without stirring from her pillows. 
“ You’d better go and entertain your friend.” 

When Mrs. Collingwood departed, Barbara leaped out 
of her bed and into her bath, and out of her bath and 
into her clothes with a speed that would have astounded 
her mother. With some makeshifts, she arranged her 
hair in three minutes instead of the usual thirty. She had 
made up her mind definitely that she would not keep her 
appointment with Cleve Winsor; but her mother’s antag- 
onism and the conversational gyrations of Ruth and Delia 
and, last of all, the unendurable patience of the young 


BARBARA PICKS A HUSBAND 


85 


gentleman in the next room, had determined her to exer- 
cise what is known as a woman’s prerogative. At the con- 
clusion of twenty minutes Barbara was walking rapidly 
eastward on Fifty-seventh Street. 

Mrs. Collingwood and Tom, in the adjoining room, made 
no attempt to converse. Tom sat, bent forward, with 
hands folded between his knees, playing a tune with his 
feet on the hardwood floor. Mrs. Collingwood, restless, 
was moving to and fro. 

You know,” said Tom at last, I have an idea in 
the back of my head that Barbara is not engaged to 
Brother Winsor.” 

‘‘Why.'^” Mrs. Collingwood stopped in her peregrin- 
ations and turned eagerly toward him. 

“ If they were really engaged, he would have told me 
last night.” 

‘‘ But Barbara told me herself.” 

‘‘ Well, you know, Barbara may have thought she could 
upset you a bit — ” 

‘‘ Well, you can ask her yourself. She must be dressed 
by this time.” She knocked at the door. ‘‘ Barbara ! 
Will you be ready soon.^ ” No answer. “It’s half past 
twelve.” No answer. “ She must have gone to sleep 
again.” 

Mrs. Collingwood opened the door. There were plen- 
tiful signs in the room of a lightning toilet, but no 
sign of Barbara herself. 

“ Tom ! ” cried Mrs. Collingwood. “ She’s gone.” 

He jumped to his feet and let his own eyes give him the 
evidence. Then he laughed, softly, but a little harshly. 
“ I don’t seem to be a match for Winsor and Company,” 
he said. 

For the first time in all the years he had known Bar- 
bara he felt resentment at a slight of hers, coupled with a 
sense of shame that he should have played the doormat so 
long. He looked at his watch. 


4 


86 BARBARA PICKS A HUSBAND 

“ Mother expects me down town,” he said quietly. “ If 
you’ll excuse my hurrying away, I think I’d better go. 
I’m late now.” 

“ It’s terrible, Tom,” said Mrs. Collingwood with her 
thoughts still on Barbara. 

“ Have you any idea where they are going to meet.? ” 
Not the slightest. And she is so young.” 

He laughed again, a kinder laugh than before, but not 
without its note of resentment. “ She’s young, dear lady, 
but she knows an awful lot. And she’s got a head on her 
shoulders. I think I should be inclined to trust her to 
take care of herself.” 

“ Still, you’ve given up everything to keep your eye on 
her.” 

“ Oh, that was purely officious,” he said carelessly. ‘‘ I 
just wanted an excuse to be around. Of course, if I can 
keep her from stubbing her toe against the flagstones I’d 
like to do it. But it isn’t really necessary.” At the door 
he turned again. “ I have a notion, by the way, that a 
girl of Barbara’s pep rather objects to having a male 
governess. I may be wrong, but anyway, the idea seems 
to be worth considering.” 

Five minutes later he was in a taxi, rushing, fifteen 
minutes behind schedule, to meet Mrs. Faraway at Bren- 
tano’s. Two blocks before he came abreast of her, he 
recognized Barbara’s back and her short, brisk gait. He 
jumped forward to tell the driver to stop, hesitated and 
sank back into the shadows of the rear seat. The resent- 
ment had clutched him again. For the first time he de- 
liberately missed an opportunity to be near her. The car 
whizzed past her. She did not see him ; and he tried to 
forget her for five minutes by switching his thoughts to his 
mother and her peculiar lapse of judgment. 


XI 


B arbara had named the little art shop on Thirty- 
fourth Street as the meeting place in order to avoid 
a discussion with her mother. If Cleve Winsor called for 
her at the house, there would be glances and possibly ar- 
guments in his very presence, her mother having neither 
tact nor social delicacy. She could avoid all friction by 
telling her mother (if her mother happened to get between 
her and the front door) that she was going to the hair- 
dresser’s and thence to Delia’s for lunch — and the road 
would be clear, since Mrs. Collingwood made it a point not 
to question her daughter’s word. There can be no debat- 
ing the fact that, to a certain point, existence is greatly 
simplified by skillful lying. Of course, there is a Nemesis, 
but everybody knows that she does not nail one lie in ten. 
There is also Conscience to reckon with, but Conscience 
can be shown his place. Barbara had her own conscience 
well under control. Far from regretting her frequent 
deception of her mother, she felt a slight contempt for that 
lady’s innocent trustfulness. In a world where the lie is 
as casual a weapon as a dagger in Sicily, to be “ easy ” 
seemed naturally more reprehensible than to be untrue. 

She walked swiftly down the Avenue, hampered at every 
step by her tight skirt, but feeling no resentment, since 
fashion was to her a divine institution admitting doubts 
only at penalty of Gehenna and Outer Darkness. She 
was quite liberal in her religious views, not caring much 
about the subject, but she was a bigot in matters of style. 
To her it was a moral question : a woman, dressed without 
regard to mode, was spiritually slipshod. Style was not 
so much a matter of money as of thought. She opened 

87 


88 


BARBARA PICKS A HUSBAND 


her soul to every new trick of dress that even in wartime 
floated over from Paris, very much as Mrs. Paraway 
opened hers to every intellectual movement that emanated 
from that fecund metropolis. Barbara and Mrs. Para- 
way had their similarities; they both disliked Barbara’s 
mother, for instance. 

Barbara had walked ten blocks before she discovered 
that the time was moving on to one o’clock. She jumped 
on a bus, therefore, and climbed the perilous winding stair 
to the top. The sky was clear blue with streaks of tat- 
tered gossamers pointing southward; the air was crisp. 
Gazing on the world from her lofty seat, she saw the 
houses and cars and people, not singly, but as part of 
a stirring picture; and suddenly remembered that she 
always rode inside the bus to keep her hair and her hat in 
trim. To float down upon this busy stream, watching 
it from a sort of crow’s nest, was a new experience, and 
rather thrilling. Everything seemed wonderfully clean. 
Even the people on the sidewalk seemed to partake of the 
crystal quality of the day ; and it seemed easier than usual 
to imagine them upright and sincere. The splendid houses 
thrilled her as never before. Some day she would have 
one of those. She saw the footmen and the butlers, the 
silver and gold, the velvet and satin and silk — all the 
gorgeous regalia, and it seemed to her the only worthy 
end to strive for. 

All the way to Thirty-fourth Street Barbara moved 
like a princess on a state elephant between two rows of 
magic palaces. The bridegroom of the early dawn, 
Nobody-at-all, had been quite forgotten. Two hours only 
ago he had seemed firmly fixed in the place that had 
been Cleve Winsor’s; but, each in his way or hers; Mrs. 
Collingwood, Delia, Ruth and Tom had served to re- 
enthrone Young Lochinvar; and this time more securely 
than before. At the golden end of the street he was wait- 
ing for her, strong, handsome, chivalrous, the hero she had 


BARBARA PICKS A HUSBAND 


89 


dreamed of and scarcely dared hope ever to discover; in 
prosy garments on a prosy street, the hero was waiting 
for her. It was all too wonderful for words. 

The bus stopped at the upper side of Thirty-fourth 
Street. She descended and crossed eastwards, halting 
midway, quiet, self-possessed, while a dozen or twenty cars 
bounded forward like hounds at the signal, sweeping 
north. She gazed curiously at them. People always 
interested her, particularly rich people. At the tail end 
of the pack was a mauve-colored car whose chauffeur she 
recognized, and she prepared to bow. The car rolled 
past. In the rear seat were Mrs. Paraway and Ruth 
Torrey. Facing them sat Tom. Barbara did not bow 
after all, for Tom, with flushed cheeks, was looking into 
Ruth’s face ; and did not notice Barbara. 

She crossed to the sidewalk, conscious that she was sud- 
denly tired, and that the gold and bright lights had all 
faded from the magical city and the palaces were nothing 
but shops and a red-stone caravanserai. 

It was absurd, she cried to herself, utterly absurd! 
What difference did it make to her where or with whom 
Tom Paraway spent his hours Ruth had said she was 
going to lunch at the Cosmopolitan Club with a friend. 
That was a woman’s club. The friend must be a woman. 
Not Tom, therefore, but Mrs. Paraway. It amounted to 
the same thing. Ruth had not been willing evidently to 
say with whom she was going to luncheon. She must have 
had a reason for this secrecy. 

Barbara began to see light in another direction. She 
walked quickly up Fifth Avenue and east on Thirty-fifth 
Street to get herself into a fit condition to appear before 
the Fairy Prince. She admitted to herself that the pic- 
ture of Tom Paraway absorbed in conversation with Ruth 
Torrey hurt something in her beside her pride. She now 
realized that in the back of her head had been the firm 
conviction, supporting and steadying her, that though all 


90 


BARBARA PICKS A HUSBAND 


other friends should fail, Tom Paraway would not fail. 
Tom, in wild desperation at the thought that she had ac- 
cepted Cleve Winsor, had possibly fallen at Ruth’s feet on 
the rebound. It was incredible, particularly of Tom. 
But men did do such incredible things. But Tom was not 
altogether like other men, and, besides, he had been at her 
house not a half hour ago. What were men made of.'’ 

She met Cleve Winsor in front of the art-shop, though 
she was two solid hours late for the appointment. It is 
significant that she never for an instant doubted that he 
would be there, waiting ten hours if need be. She had 
found by experience that men always did wait for her, a 
discovery which enabled her to eat her pie and have it too, 
since it laid the suitor on the leash while it left her free 
to squeeze in an extra call or a visit to the hair-dresser’s 
with no fear of missing the young man when it suited her 
convenience to meet him. In charity to Barbara, it must 
be said that she generally made her appointments for places 
where there were chairs. She herself realized that this 
was very thoughtful of her. It was, to a certain extent, 
a matter of expediency, moreover, for she found that it 
helped to keep the young man, whoever he was, open- 
minded to excuses. But her precaution was really un- 
necessary. Her excuses were always perfect, and ex- 
pressed with lovely penitence. 

Cleve Winsor had a large patience in affairs of the 
heart ; and considerable experience, in spite of his reputed 
misogyny. If Barbara was certain of his appearing, so 
was he of hers. He let the ladies in the shop show him 
every engraving and reproduction they had, and waited 
without increase of temperature. It was like Nursie en- 
tertaining Baby — one picture book after another. The 
elder of the ladies was plain, and fortunately it was she 
who had to go out to lunch; for the other was not only 
young, but attractive, with a dimple in her large expanse 


BARBARA PICKS A HUSBAND 


91 


of cheek and a clever tongue, which she seemed to enjoy ex- 
ercising — a college girl evidently, still intoxicated with 
the capabilities of the human mind, particularly her own. 

The time passed delightfully. 

She enjoyed hugely snaring him in her witticisms, and 
it was a pleasure to him to see her blush at some word of 
admiration which both knew was altogether too frank. 
Both felt a happy tingling in their veins. It was really 
very romantic. Moreover, the fact that they had friends 
in common, solid pillars of Poughkeepsie, at once raised 
the whole matter, as far as the girl was concerned, out of 
the limbo of street adventure into the pure ether of divinely 
appointed friendship. 

Her name was Joan Reid. She spoke it softly, a little 
frightened, suddenly overcome by the wonder and sheer 
beauty of romance. A customer, entering, interrupted 
the idyllic scene. Cleve Winsor stared idly through the 
window, on the watch for Barbara, as he waited for the 
customer to go. This unnecessary person went at last. 
Again Young Lochinvar and Joan had the shop to them- 
selves. He basked in the admiration her witty repartee 
revealed, where it was meant to hide. The blush on her 
cheek was permanent now. She bit her lip as he took her 
hand and pressed it in parting, and the last gibe was 
actually tremulous. 

He left the shop, planning to meet Barbara somewhere 
outside. He met her in the doorway, coming unex- 
pectedly from the east. It was the stretch from Fifth 
Avenue that he had been keeping guard over. 

‘‘ Did you think I wasn’t coming? ” she said, looking 
up into his eyes. I wasn’t. I made up my mind abso- 
lutely that I wasn’t, and here I am.” 

She laughed happily, and he, too, tried to laugh, but 
the laugh was nervous and unconvincing. He took her 
arm and tried to steer her toward the Avenue. 


92 


BARBARA PICKS A HUSBAND 


It seemed that she had business in the art-shop — some 
directions she had to give about the framing of a picture 
she had bought there a day or so ago. 

“ Oh, we’ll do that after lunch,” he said. 

“ Perfectly absurd ! ” she cried. “ When we’re right 
here. Come on. I want your advice.” 

They entered the shop. It took Barbara an intermin- 
able while to select the bit of molding she wanted. Miss 
Reid was distrait, moreover, deaf, clumsy, without ideas 
of her own; in every way different from the Miss Reid 
Barbara had patronized in the past. Barbara decided 
she must be ill, but was curt to her nevertheless. Cleve 
was of no help. He insisted on turning his back on the 
whole transaction and studying a picture of a blue, turbu- 
lent bit of ocean with no land or sail in sight, only waves, 
restless, malignant, numberless into infinity, suggesting 
madness and death by thirst. 

At last the ten deadly minutes were over. Barbara 
and Cleve Winsor left the shop. Miss Reid watched them 
go, standing behind the counter with a bit of gold molding 
still in her hand. Very slowly she closed her eyes and kept 
them closed, getting her mental bearings best with the 
familiar physical surroundings blotted out. She opened 
her eyes again after a while and began to straighten out 
the counter, hanging up bits of molding she had shown 
Miss Collingwood. She must have been crazy. Yes, she 
was positive she must have had a brainstorm. She laughed 
at herself scornfully and not without pain. She felt 
sorry, incidentally, for Miss Collingwood. 

That young lady lunched with Cleve Winsor at his 
father’s favorite hostelry, the St. James, the younger 
Winsor having inherited the elder’s instinct for knowing 
when to be conservative. Every one took them for honey- 
mooners. They were, in fact, lyrically happy, and of 
great profit to the management, for they ordered much 
and ate practically nothing at all. 


XII 


T om met his mother in the little room in the rear of 
Brentano’s where the fine editions are sold. She 
was seated and had a half dozen specimen volumes on the 
table before her. 

What a help you are, Tom ! ” she cried as he entered. 
“ I thought we said twelve-thirty.” 

He did not have a chance to explain, even if he had 
cared to do so, for at that moment, Ruth, studying the 
bindings on a shelf opposite the door, turned and reached 
out her hand. Tom expressed polite surprise. 

“ Isn’t it nice? ” said Mrs. Faraway, with her pleasant 
smile. “ Ruth says she’ll join us for lunch.” 

He was annoyed. . He had suspected once or twice that 
his mother was playing a game and that her sporadic 
devotion to Ruth was merely a move in it. He was not 
in a mood to enter with enthusiasm into any of his 
mother’s games. Besides, he had much to say to her on 
the matter of Mrs. Clipston. But Ruth’s gaze was so ap- 
pealing and tender that he could not bring himself to de- 
clare, as he was inclined to do, that he had an important 
engagement and would have to be excused. He felt im- 
mensely sorry for Ruth. She was such a little fly and his 
mother was such an astute and alluring spider. He de- 
cided that he could scarcely be decent enough to Ruth. 

They selected the books with the aid of an epigram or 
two from Mrs. Faraway and some plain common sense 
from Ruth, who suggested timidly that a young couple 
probably would prefer Stevenson to Carlyle ; and Kipling 
in twenty-five volumes, bound in cloth, to Kingsley in 

93 


94 


BARBARA PICKS A HUSBAND 


twenty, bound by Zaehrnsdorf in crushed Levant. Tom, 
who, at that moment, did not feel much interested in 
literature of any sort, irreverently intimated that eighty 
dollars would buy an electric washing-machine, which, 
unless he miscalculated the bridegroom’s finances egreg- 
iously, would be vastly more welcome than Kipling and 
Kingsley together. 

Ruth laughed and approved. But Mrs. Paraway did 
neither. She merely smiled indulgently and gave the clerk 
her card and the address of the bride. When she had 
done this she turned again to Tom with that same indulgent 
smile. “ Materialist ! ” she said. 

He had an awful impulse to cry “ Oh, hell ! ” He 
scarcely knew why, except that life seemed too difficult, 
too exacting to leave him any time or patience to endure 
this weak dilution which was literariness. He did not 
utter the unpardonable exclamation. In fact, he gave 
no indication that he wanted to utter it. He picked up a 
volume of the “ Tower of London ” man — What was his 
name ? Ainsworth — exquisitely bound in tree-calf — a 
chambermaid in brocade — and turned the leaves thought- 
fully. Then he spoke. 

“ When it comes to a tussle for souls between any one 
of these fellows and an electric washing-machine,” he re- 
marked slowly, “ my money is all on the washing-ma- 
chine.” 

“ He’s bad-tempered,” Mrs. Paraway observed, laying 
her gloved hand on Ruth’s arm. “ Men must be kept fed 
like the other animals. Realism never has such a hold on 
men as immediately before a meal. Let’s take him to 
lunch.” 

They did so, driving up Fifth Avenue in the mauve- 
colored car. As they were about to cross Thirty-fourth 
Street, Mrs. Paraway saw a familiar, slender figure in 
the middle of the street, watching for the cars to pass. 
She gave Tom a quick glance. He was riding backwards 


BARBARA PICKS A HUSBAND 


95 


and, of course, could not see Barbara, but in a moment 
he would, as he was not conversing more than courtesy 
absolutely demanded ; 'and was watching the cars and the 
sidewalk beyond as one who is seeking a certain face. She 
swept her mind for a subject to hold him, as a wrecked 
mariner will sweep the sea for a sail. She had about five 
seconds to find one. 

“ Isn’t it interesting,” she remarked casually to Ruth, 
“ about Barbara Collingwood? ” 

The ruse was a bit desperate, but it worked. Tom 
turned, looking straight into her eyes. “What?” he 
asked, a bit brusquely. 

Ruth gave Tom a quick glance and colored slightly. 
“ I haven’t heard anything,” she murmured. 

“ She’s engaged, you know,” Mrs. Paraway went on in 
her pleasantest manner, “ to Mr. Winsor.” 

“ How lovely ! ” cried Ruth, suddenly radiant. 

“ He told Tom himself.” 

Tom was leaning forward, his face flushed, his eyes 
flashing. “ Winsor was bluffing. He had his reasons for 
wanting me to believe he was engaged. I told Father so. 
He must have misunderstood, or you must have misunder- 
stood.” He turned to Ruth. She looked unhappy. “ I 
beg your pardon,” he added. “ There seems to have been 
a rather ghastly misunderstanding. I happen to know 
that Mrs. Collingwood had no intention of announcing 
any engagement. Or Barbara, either, for that matter.” 

I saw Barbara this morning,” said Ruth. “ She 
wouldn’t say yes or no.” All the radiance was gone from 
her face and she looked hollow-eyed. 

“ Why, if that’s the case,” said Mrs. Paraway, “ of 
course, I’ll say no more about it. After all, it is not a 
subject of world-shaking importance either way, is it? ” 

Barbara was safely passed long ago. They were turn- 
ing into Thirty-eighth Street. 

No meal could be dull with Mrs. Paraway present, and 


96 


BARBARA PICKS A HUSBAND 


the heaviest gloom always dissolved and floated away in 
the electric-fan breeze of her calculated talk. Aristotle 
came in with the oysters and George Ade with the entree. 
Don Quixote with his Dulcinea followed and a heroine or 
two of H. G. Wells brushed elbows in a sentence with 
Diana of the Crossways, Diana of Ephesus and the presi- 
dent of the New York Society for Equal Suffrage, with 
a sharp thrust for the last. Even Barbara Collingwood 
re-entered the conversation, deliberately adjured, in order 
to lay the ghost of the oppressive thought that there was 
a topic which must not be discussed. 

Mrs. Paraway talked merrily on. She enjoyed talking 
for the same reason that other people, not necessarily 
her inferiors in intellect, enjoy sweeping a room. She 
drove her broom into dusty corners and lo, the effect was 
immediate. She did not definitely banish any dust, it is 
true, driving it from one resting place merely to allow it to 
settle comfortably in another. Most people thought her 
intellectually an admirable and thorough housekeeper, only 
a few discovering after years that she practiced her art 
mainly for its immediate rewards and cared little or 
nothing about the definite removal of dust. Tom had sus- 
pected the truth once or twice and wondered whether 
his father, who had a piercing eye for shams, knew. The 
very suspicion, recurring at intervals without tangible 
proof, made him miserable. 

Ruth said little during the course of the meal, but then 
Ruth never did say much. She was a girl one was always 
tempted to describe in terms of flowers ; and one does not 
expect wit from a rose or paradoxes from a lily, but ex- 
pects fragrance and delicate color and texture, a hint of 
the immortality of beauty, and more than a hint of the 
brevity of its individual manifestations. All these Ruth 
gave in a measure that made the things she lacked seem for 
the instant garish and undesirable. She had only one 
adorer, her father, who passed uneasy nights between the 


BARBARA PICKS A HUSBAND 97 

twin fears that she would not marry the man she loved, and 
that she would. 

Tom felt the charm of her loveliness and of her gentle 
spirit, uncomplicated by contact with modernity. For 
the roaring current that was tearing away shores and old 
landmarks and shifting bars and stream-beds left her little 
island undisturbed. The new liberties, the new exactions, 
the obliteration of old reverences, the consciousness of 
beauty and wonder in matters once despised, that moiling 
river in spring flood which swept Barbara off her feet, was 
to Ruth merely a disturbance without meaning. It was 
the vague, infernal force which in all ages is supposed 
by “ idealists ” to war against the “ sacred illusions ” of 
life. 

A few people, Mrs. Collingwood, for instance, wondered 
why two girls so utterly different as Barbara and Ruth 
should be such close friends. These two had been room- 
mates by decree at boarding-school and had happened 
afterwards to live within a block of each other in New 
York. Besides, Ruth had a childlike way of adoring folk 
whom others would admire, possibly, and no more, for 
certain dazzling qualities which they themselves did not 
possess. Barbara enjoyed being adored. She felt, more- 
over, that Ruth was trustworthy, “ square.” She re- 
spected her for the very truthfulness which Barbara her- 
self did not always consider it expedient to practice. In- 
cidentally, silent Ruth was a good foil to her who could 
gabble to fine effect. Ruth, taken altogether, was a 
pleasant and useful friend to have. 

Tom let his mother do most of the talking, and when 
he could do so unobserved, regarded Ruth thoughtfully. 
It is inevitable that the consciousness that a young lady 
is deeply in love with you should cast a certain glamour 
over that young lady’s appearance and ascribe to her cer- 
tain admirable qualities of intellect and judgment in 
addition to those which she actually possesses. Tom felt 


98 


BARBARA PICKS A HUSBAND 


sure that Ruth had somewhere, within that form of sweet 
beauty, the quick and eager thoughts that Barbara had, 
the inquisitive, restless mind, the independent spirit — all 
of Barbara’s fine qualities without her faults ; and with 
them all, an enticing lovelinesss, a dryad sweetness beckon- 
ing him on to green hilltops. He felt resentful of Bar- 
bara’s deceits, suspicious of the fineness of the grain, since 
she could abide Cleve Winsor. 

A man could be very happy, married to Ruth. 

He remarked that fact to himself with utter coolness ; 
he could not imagine himself in the position of that man. 
He loved Barbara and he did not love Ruth. Barbara 
had a dozen faults, some of which made him wince, and one 
or two of which he would not have endured in a man. He 
happened to love Barbara, and that was all there was 
about it. 

And he had shortcomings of his own. 

His resentment against Barbara faded. He would have 
given his immortal soul that moment, he thought, if he had 
jumped from the taxi an hour before and carried her off 
with him to some quiet restaurant, and were talking with 
her now. Ass that he had been to be resentful ! 

Tom planned to escape immediately after luncheon ; but 
Mrs. Paraway had plans of a conflicting nature. She 
wished to keep her eye on Tom and at the first signs of 
restlessness on his part produced theater-tickets, three of 
them. He tried to make her understand by a look and 
gesture that he simply would not go, but she seemed sud- 
denly obtuse. Thereupon he decided to be firm and de- 
clared flatly, though courteously, that he could not spare 
the time. Mrs. Paraway seemed to accept this as final, 
insisting only that Tom accompany them to the theater 
and exchange the third ticket himself. Descending from 
the automobile, Mrs. Paraway turned her ankle and had to 
be helped gently to her seat in the orchestra, protesting 


BARBARA PICKS A HUSBAND 99 

with an epigram or two. Tom could not leave her after 
that. 

It did not perceptibly help his temper, during the two 
and a half hours that followed, to perceive, as he did 
clearly, that he had been successfully kidnapped with far 
less effort than he had expended that morning in failing to 
kidnap Cleve Winsor. 


XIII 


D uring luncheon and the hours that immediately fol- 
lowed it, the Charm which Mrs. Faraway had that 
morning discovered was Cleve Winsor’s was strongly in 
evidence. Young Lochinvar was obviously intent on 
pleasing, and Barbara’s radiant face revealed clearly 
enough that he was successful. 

The luncheon was an unmarred delight. Winsor made 
no reference to the pantry episode, he claimed no privileges 
because of it, not even the protecting hold of her elbow 
which he had allowed himself in Minneapolis after half a 
day’s acquaintance. Barbara was led to imagine that he 
was sorry for his excessive fervor of the previous evening. 
He was profoundly respectful, particularly in matters in- 
tellectual, in which he yielded to her invariably. Barbara 
was touched by his evident remorse, and deeply stirred by 
his devotion. 

Throughout luncheon he talked of his own life. That 
happened to be the subject he could talk on most fluently; 
and it was a thrillingly interesting story to Barbara. He 
told her of his family, first of all, suggesting in his tones 
that these marvelous relatives — for he painted them in 
vivid colors — could be her own for the asking. Barbara, 
who read the newspapers more than most girls of her age, 
had read about his father. He was the greatest lumber- 
man of Minnesota, one of the greatest in the country, a 
force in railroads and in paper, a man of extraordinary 
vitality, still under fifty. 

“ You’ll read some more about Dad one of these days. 
He’s the biggest man in the country since Morgan died.” 

“ He must be wonderful ! ” cried Barbara. 

100 


BARBARA PICKS A HUSBAND 


101 


You bet he’s wonderful. Everything he does is won- 
derful. They talk about him for hours at the camps 
nights, swapping stories about the things he’s done. And 
when he’s off on trips, he reads poetry by the yard. What 
do you know about that? A man named Whitman, mostly. 
And then something about an old booze-fighter named 
Captain Craig, and something else about a man named 
Cory who’s got everything under the sun and then goes 
home and shoots himself. I never could see why. But 
Dad’ll sit before a fire in the woods and reel off lines and 
lines of it. ‘ And Richard Cory one warm summer’s 
night ’ — that’s the way it ends — ‘ went home and put a 
bullet through his head.’ He calls that poetry. I can’t 
read the stuff.” 

Barbara was thrilled. There was something extraor- 
dinarily romantic in the picture of this captain of industry 
before a campfire in the wilds, reciting poetry. She 
wished that Winsor junior enjoyed that sort of thing. 
But he didn’t, and she was glad that he made no pretense 
about it. 

‘‘ I’m not the reading sort,” he was saying. ‘‘ I like to 
do things and to hear about people who do things. I 
haven’t any use for the gassing kind. Poets may be all 
right here in the East, but in the West it’s the man with 
red blood that counts. The man that can chop down a 
tree and put through a big deal. That’s the kind of a 
man I want to be.” His manner implied that that was the 
kind of a man he already was. 

In that game of hearts during luncheon, Winsor took 
every trick. Everything he said and did seemed to Bar- 
bara not only right, but beautiful. She accepted his 
judgments, expressed and implied, without question; his 
standards seemed the only standards she would ever care 
to know. Her critical faculty — so keen as a rule — was 
benumbed, asleep. He could have told her that the ob- 
viously German waiter was a converted Chinaman and she 


BARBARA PICKS A HUSBAND 


loa 

would have believed him, and thought him wonderful for 
perceiving what she would never have discovered. She 
would have eloped with him then and there, if he had 
wished it. But he expressed no such desire. He merely 
begged to be allowed to go shopping with her. She an- 
swered him with her eyes. “ To the uttermost stars,” 
they said. With her lips she remarked, “ Of course. If 
you want to.” 

They took a taxi to Altman’s, and spent two hours 
ricochetting between that stately palace and the populous 
and no less imposing house of Macy, a quarter of a mile 
westward. They made the journey twice, back and forth 
through crowded thoroughfares, Winsor Unmarried prais- 
ing her persistence where Winsor Married would have 
roundly denounced her vacillation. 

Shopping took on a new glory for her. He helped her 
select a hat and the hat had a halo in her sight. She 
even allowed him to help her select some silk stockings, 
feeling slightly wicked but greatly thrilled at the inti- 
macy of it all. They went through the furniture depart- 
ments of three stores, coming upon them as if by accident 
in each case; and pointed out to each other the styles 
they preferred, quite casually, but with a knocking heart. 

From one to five that day Barbara walked along the 
glowing avenues of romance. The shimmer of dawn was 
over the world. There was no past, there was no future, 
there was no mother at home, no troublesome Tom Fara- 
way, no attractive Chester, smiling in the offing, no Ruth, 
no Delia with perplexing eulogies. All life was focussed 
in this sudden, overpowering love. She had seen it afar 
off a month ago at Minneapolis. She had dreamt of it 
in the interim, hoping, doubting, counting the days. Here 
it was, real, “ wonderful,” a thing beyond the mind’s 
power of imagining. 

They took tea at “ The Purple Cow ” at five. 

Mrs. Jardine was there with a friend, and bowed with 


BARBARA PICKS A HUSBAND 


103 


what Barbara thought unnecessary enthusiasm. She was 
a slender little woman, quivering almost visibly with 
energy, middle-aged, warm-hearted, clever in her way, but 
incurably optimistic concerning engagements. She wore 
a bonnet with strings, a lingering tribute to her husband, 
who had died in the nineties and who had liked her in bon- 
nets with strings. Barbara was amazed to see her rise 
and cross fifty feet of intervening space to come to the 
half-hidden table at which she and Cleve Winsor were 
sitting. 

“ Dear Barbara,” cried Mrs. Jardine. “ How you have 
fooled us all ! ” 

Barbara looked up a trifle coolly. She did not like 
Mrs. Jardine. Possibly the bonnet had something to do 
with her attitude. But Mrs. Jardine always struck her as 
a sentimental bore. “ Fooled How? ” 

“ And is this Mr. Winsor? ” proceeded Mrs. Jardine. 

“ I beg your pardon for not introducing you,” said 
Barbara, more perplexed than ever. “Mrs. Jardine — 
Mr. Winsor.” 

“ I am so glad to meet you. You are a very fortunate 
young man.” 

Cleve Winsor turned to Barbara for light. She was 
frowning. “ I think there must be some mistake,” she 
said, making no effort to hide the fact that she wished 
Mrs. Jardine to return to her own table. 

“ Are you still trying to fool us ? ” the lady went on 
coyly. “ Everybody knows it now.” 

“ Knows what ? ” 

“ Why, you dear little hypocrite, about your engage- 
ment.” 

Barbara flushed and Cleve, standing, looked down and 
began to tap the table. There was an uncomfortable 
pause. 

“ Pm not engaged, Mrs. Jardine,” said Barbara at last. 
“ I don’t see how you could have heard that I was. 


104 


BARBARA PICKS A HUSBAND 


Would you mind denying it? Thank you so much.” She 
held out her hand. “ Good-by.” 

‘‘ But, my dear Barbara, I heard it — ” 

“Yes, people are queer, aren’t they?” Barbara broke 
in, irrelevantly. “ Thank you so much. Good-by.” 

Mrs. Jardine mumbled something or other, and recrossed 
the room looking somewhat bedraggled. Barbara, not 
wishing quite yet to meet Cleve Winsor’s glance, followed 
her passage with a hard look on her face, and saw her sit 
down as one exhausted, lean over the table and begin to 
talk volubly. 

At last she turned again to her companion. “ Have 
some hot tea,” she remarked, with her hand on the teapot. 

He did not answer, but looked at her for a long time 
with an expression about the mouth and eyes which she had 
never seen there before, a flat unresponsiveness that was 
almost defiance. For the first time she noticed a bulldog 
quality in his chin. She tried to meet his glance and for 
some reason could not. 

She felt a ghastly sinking sensation, and shivered. It 
seemed to her the earth had cracked open in the three foot 
space between Cleve Winsor and herself, and that they were 
suddenly separated by a widening gulf, black and deep. 
She knew why. Cleve Winsor suspected her of having 
started the rumor that they were engaged. It was stupid 
of him, but men were stupid beings. It occurred to her 
that he was probably thinking that she was anxious to 
make sure of him, and he did not enjoy having his hand 
forced. Heavens ! There were other men in the world ! 

He admitted after a while that he did want a hot cup 
of tea, and conversation began anew. But the sparkle 
had gone out of it. They were both constrained, and 
Barbara could see by the expression of his eyes that he was 
trying to work his way through certain bits of conflict- 
ing evidence. She felt impelled once to have the matter 
out, then and there, but her pride stepped in ; and she de- 


BARBARA PICKS A HUSBAND 


105 


cided that a man who could suspect so quickly did not 
deserve explanations. She felt tired, sick, ready to drop. 
She would have given much to have seen her mother come 
into the tea-room at that moment and take her home and 
put her to bed. 

Winsor offered to escort her to Fifty-seventh Street, but 
she refused the offer with quiet emphasis. He begged 
her to let him secure a taxi. She declared she wanted to 
walk. Still he lingered, reluctant to go with this chasm 
between them. He lingered a moment too long, for as they 
walked slowly from the side entrance of the tea-room to- 
ward the Avenue, they ran into Tom Paraway, waiting pa- 
tiently with his runabout at the curb; and was forced to 
stand by helplessly and listen to her delighted acceptance 
of a ride. He had the grace to grin and accept the onus 
of the joke. 

“ How in blazes did you know — ” 

Tom laughed and did not stop to explain that Barbara 
liked tea at five and that when she did not take it at home 
the chances were good that she was taking it at the ‘‘ Pur- 
ple Cow.” He might have used this information to point 
out that in some respects an acquaintanceship covering 
years has advantages over even the most hectic rush.” 
He did nothing of the sort. He called, ‘‘ So long, old 
man,” waved his hand flippantly, and was off, moving 
slowly toward the late afternoon procession of cars crawl- 
ing up the Avenue. 


XIV 


B arbara admitted to herself comfortably that 
grandpa had his uses, sinking back into the cushions 
and regarding the electrically lighted occupants of pass- 
ing cars with a languid, world-weary air, as though to say, 
“ Let the earth open and swallow you. Who cares ? 
Your dress is hideous anyway, and your hat is a crime.’’ 

“ Comfortable ? ” 

“ Yes. Thanks.” 

These three words carried them, conversationally, for 
twenty blocks. 

“ Home.^ ” asked Tom at Fifty-seventh Street, with his 
eye on the traffic officer. 

“ Heavens, no ! ” 

They sped into the Park. Night and great trees were 
about them now — a fettered, domesticated night, 
tended and cultivated trees, with lawn below and artificial 
lakes and a menagerie and goats and donkeys slmnbering 
just out of eyeshot: a civilized urban garden, nature 
tamed almost to purring ; and yet, a fairyland. 

Barbara closed her eyes, happy to relax and shut out 
the world and feel the cold wind against her face. She 
was aware now how tautly strung she had been all after- 
noon. She had been thrillingly happy ; but the happiness 
had been somewhat of a strain. She had tried so hard 
to be at her best every minute — beautiful, graceful, 
witty, entertaining — and at the same time to keep Cleve 
Winsor in the posture of the humble subject, with his neck 
under her scarlet heel. 

With Tom she need do no play-acting. She knew he 
adored her and, besides, she did not care whether he did or 

106 


BARBARA PICKS A HUSBAND 


107 


not. She could relax to her heart’s content; and did so, 
remotely conscious that there was something nice about 
Tom, a sense of peace. He was a quiet haven good for ships 
to anchor in until the wind was done with blowing for the 
time ; in this respect very like a nurse she had been devoted 
to sporadically for a similar reason from her seventh to 
her tenth year. No one ever thought of marrying one’s 
nurse. She opened her eyes and closed them again, find- 
ing in the stern gaze of a bronze Daniel Webster no incen- 
tive to keep them open. She should have looked to the 
right, where a full moon hung dreamily over and within 
dark water surrounded by dark trees. A fairy bridge 
shimmered silvery in the distance. Stars sparkled 
through bare branches, seeming to hang like jewels from 
the twigs. 

Who had told Mrs. Jardine that she and Cleve Winsor 
were engaged? That question beat at the door of her 
consciousness, but she locked and bolted the door, refusing 
to entertain it. The whole matter of Cleve Winsor was 
so vital that she thrust it out of her mind with all the 
energy of her will, knowing that it demanded vigor and 
clear insight which at that moment she was without. She 
was like a mermaid taking temporary refuge on shore from 
the amorous pursuit of the sea-monster, luxuriating in an 
alien element with all the difficulties of her own for an hour 
remote. Her face was expressionless, neither glad nor 
unhappy. The trouble was that though she could banish 
all problems from her conscious mind, she could not ban- 
ish them from that inner mind whose judgments we note 
and value and call intuition. Barbara’s calculations 
were going on, though she supposed that she was thinking 
of nothing at all, or at most of the freshness of the air 
against her cheeks and the pleasant song of the motor. 

They left the Park behind at One Hundred and Tenth 
Street and turned west toward Riverside Drive. About 
them once more were the lights and noises and hurrying 


108 


BARBARA PICKS A HUSBAND 


legs and swinging arms of the great city. Barbara felt 
the spell break. 

“ Tom,” she said, turning to him suddenly. 

“ Don’t scare me to death,” he said. “ I didn’t know 
you were still there. I thought you’d got off and gone 
home.” 

“ I’ve got to telephone. Mother’ll be crazy. She 
probably thinks I’ve eloped.” 

“ No, she doesn’t.” 

How do you know ? ” 

“ I telephoned her at the tea-room.” 

‘‘ You did.? ” 

“ I told her the lost sheep was corralled.” 

“ Did you say that.? ” Barbara’s voice was sharp. 

“No. I told her you were taking tea very respectably 
with a certain Mr. Winsor of Minneapolis, and incidentally 
entertaining Mrs. Jardine. She seemed relieved.” 

Barbara caught her breath, whether at the mention of 
Mrs. Jardine or at the prospect of imminent destruction 
suddenly presented by a flying Ford bound uptown, is 
inessential. Tom dodged the Ford, made a savage gen- 
eralization concerning all flivver-drivers and slowly de- 
scended the steep hill to the Drive. 

“ Mrs. Jardine was funny,” Barbara remarked thought- 
fully. 

“ So your mother thought.” 

“ Heavens ! Did she telephone Mother.? ” 

“ She did.” 

Barbara had a vision of Nemesis approaching with a 
club. “ Great Scott ! ” she murmured. 

“ What’s the matter.? ” 

“ Mrs. Jardine thinks I’m engaged.” 

“ She certainly does.” 

“ She probably asked Mother about it.” 

“ I think she did.” 

“Well, Mother nagged at me so, that, just to worry 


BARBARA PICKS A HUSBAND 


109 


her, I told her I was. She probably told Mrs. Jardine it 
was all settled. What do you know.^ ” Barbara’s voice 
sounded gloomy. 

“ Well, aren’t you engaged.? ” 

Of course not.” 

I see,” murmured Tom expressively, giving the car- 
buretor an extra contribution of gas as he turned with a 
Spurt up the Drive. “ In other words, you lied like a 
streak.” 

‘‘ I didn’t lie,” she retorted emphatically. ‘‘ I didn’t 
try to deceive anybody. Mother just got me so mad I had 
to say something to get even.” 

“ Oh, I’m not reproaching you.” 

“ You are ! ” 

‘‘ Have it your own way,” he grumbled. 

Conversation lagged after this exchange of courtesies. 

‘‘You’re an awful gloom,” she remarked as they were 
crossing the viaduct at One Hundred and Twenty-fifth 
Street. 

“ You’ve said that before.” 

“ Why don’t you talk ? ” 

“ I didn’t know you’d hired me for my qualities as an 
entertainer. I thought I was doing duty merely as a 
chauffeur.” 

“ You are the limit.” 

“ Don’t mention it.” 

Another long pause ensued. “ I thought you pretended 
to be my friend,” she said at last. 

“ I don’t pretend anything.” 

“ Well, I thought you were my friend.” 

“ I am.” 

“Why won’t you talk to me, then.? You see the box 
I’m in. You know I want advice.” 

“ No, you don’t, Bee. You just want some one to line 
up a lot of targets for you to knock down.” 

“ You’re perfectly crazy ! ” 


110 


BARBARA PICKS A HUSBAND 


“ On with the bouquets ! ” 

“ I never was so disappointed in anybody in my life.” 

“ I didn’t think you ever cared enough to be disap- 
pointed. Thanks for the implied compliment.” 

“ I do care. I’ve always liked you very much,” she said 
emphatically, adding, ‘‘ as a friend.” 

“ I shouldn’t expect you to like me as an enemy.” 

You know what I mean.” 

Not in the least, unless you mean that you’d hate to 
marry anybody you considered your friend. And that 
doesn’t seem to me to make sense.” 

“ I wish I knew what is the matter with you.” 

There’s nothing the matter with me.” 

Why are you so queer then ? ” . 

“ I’m not queer.” 

You’re not a bit the way you used to be.” 

“ Grandfatherly .? You objected to that.” 

“ Just — friendly.” 

“I am — just friendly. Perhaps that’s what you ob- 
ject to.” 

“ You’re trying to be funny.” 

‘‘ No, I’m not,” he answered with great seriousness. 
‘‘ I’ve seen a great light, that’s all.” 

‘‘ You’ve seen a great light ” 

“ Urn.” 

“ What kind of a light ? ” Her voice was eager and 
just a trifle apprehensive. 

“ A light’s a light. Only this happens to be a big 
light.” 

She had been leaning forward a bit, but now she sank 
back into the soft cushions, as though a spring in her 
back had given way. She did not answer for a minute 
or two. “ You mean,” she said at last, slowly, “ that you 
don’t care for me any more — as you did.^ ” 

She watched his face as arc-light after arc-light lit it 
for a flash. The expression on it was the same under 


BARBARA PICKS A HUSBAND 


111 


the tenth as under the first lamp, determined, calm, a 
trifle grim. “ I’m not saying,” he responded a half mile 
farther north. 

They sped on, neither speaking until the rugged preci- 
pices of Fort Washington began to give way to the tamer 
levels of Van Cortlandt Park. 

‘‘ I want to go home,” said Barbara suddenly. 

Tom slowed down the car at once. “ Right you are,” 
he said. “ Your mother’ll be glad to see you. She was 
hoping you’d come home early and get some sleep.” 

“ Oh, heavens ! ” cried Barbara, “ I suppose I’ll he put 
to bed with admonitions and a hot water bottle. Oh, 
gloom ! ” She sat motionless in the motionless car a full 
minute, regarding the prospect, while Tom waited. Then 
abruptly she spoke. “ I’m not going home. I won’t be 
quizzed. Take me to grandma’s.” 

‘‘ Grandma’s.^ ” queried Tom, puzzled. 

“ Father’s mother.” 

Haven’t heard you speak of her for years.” 

“ We’ve been at outs.” 

“ I see.” 

“ She lives up here somewhere. When I was a kid I 
used to come up twice a week or more. Fordham. That’s 
near here. Over that way.” She pointed ^eastwards. 
“ Merlin Road is the street. I’ll spend the night with her.” 

He threw in the clutch. ‘‘ You’re the captain,” he said, 
and bowled under the elevated. 

They found the little house in Merlin Road with some 
difficulty, for the night and Barbara’s memory played 
tricks with her sense of orientation. At last, after two or 
three trips up and down the length of the quiet suburban 
street, they found it, half way between two arc lights, a 
dusky, shy retreat, with the only evergreens in the neigh- 
borhood screening its front porch and straw-colored rose- 
bushes on the lawn and along the fences that bounded the 
diminutive estate. There was light in the first-floor win- 


112 


BARBARA PICKS A HUSBAND 


dows and as they stopped at the curb they saw for an 
instant a shadow on the window-shade for all the world 
like a silhouette of Eighteen-sixty — shawl, hair-cap and 
all. 

“ That’s grandma,” whispered Barbara. 

Tom noticed an excited eagerness in her tone and was 
stirred by it. Who, seeing Barbara at the “ Purple 
Cow ” that afternoon, would ever have imagined that she 
could be thrilled by a visit to a grandmother as by an 
adventure Yet Barbara was thrilled. There was the 
light of expectation in her eyes, as though she were about 
to meet her lover. Tom decided that he knew nothing at 
all of the ways of the human heart, particularly not when 
it wore the garments of woman. 

‘‘ Come on in,” said Barbara. 

I don’t think I’d better.” 

« Please.” 

He shook his head. 

“ I’m afraid,” she confessed. 

“ She won’t eat you.” 

“ I said a lot of horrid things when we fought three 
years ago. She may not let me come in.” 

“ I never saw a grandmother yet who could keep a 
grudge three years. I’ll tell you what I’ll do. I’ll wait 
out here until you’re safely in her arms. Will that do.'* ” 

‘‘How will you know.^ ” 

“ Open the door and shout.” 

“ All right.” She held out her hand. “ Good-by, 
Tom. Thanks for the ride.” She took a step toward the 
house, hesitated and turned again. “ If you get over your 
grouch, you can call for me in the morning, if you want 
to. Any time around nine. Grandma has breakfast 
shortly after midnight.” 

“ I’ll see,” he answered. 

“ Oh, don’t put yourself out ! ” she retorted quickly. 

“ Thanks, I won’t.” 


BARBARA PICKS A HUSBAND IIS 

‘‘ You’re perfectly horrid.” There was a catch in her 
voice. 

“ It’s a way worms have.” 

“ What do you mean.? ” 

He rushed the engine suddenly. “ Think it over,” he 
remarked coolly, when the tumult had subsided. 

Barbara shrugged her shoulders, turned and walked 
quickly up the cement walk, up the three steps to the front 
door. It opened almost before the silver tinkling of the 
old-fashioned pull-bell died on the quiet air. 

“Who’s there.?” said a gentle, musical voice. Tom 
heard it, wondering how Barbara could ever have been 
afraid of a grandmother with a voice like that. He saw 
a dark shadow in the open doorway and heard an excited 
exclamation, “ Barbara ! ” There was no lingering re- 
sentment in that cry. 

“ Hello, Gran ! ” cried Barbara, trying hard to appear 
unmoved. Her quavering voice betrayed her. Tom saw 
the slender old lady take the slender girl in her arms, 
and heard the caressing exclamation, “ Dear, little Bar- 
bara ! ” 

It had evidently occurred to neither to shut the door. 
Tom saw that there was no need for him to stay, and he 
felt like an intruder staring at that scene of the prodi- 
gal’s return. But he did not have the heart to break into 
it with a possible explosion from the exhaust pipe and the 
harsh clangor of a clutch sliding into gear. 

Barbara’s voice came to him, strangely happy. It’s 
all right, Tom,” she was calling. “ Grandma says I can 
stay. Good night.” 

He called back, “ Good night. Bee,” and was off, think- 
ing of grandmothers and feeling old, for all his twenty- 
four years, remembering that the unique joy of going to 
visit a grandmother was forever behind him, buried in 
two graves years ago. He thought of grandmothers all 
the way home. 


XV 


I N the little house in Merlin Road, Barbara was finding 
some difficulty in regaining her self-assurance. She 
had the satisfaction, however, of observing that Madam 
Collingwood was having no easier time of it. That lovely 
old lady had two bright spots in her usually sallow cheeks. 

“ Take off your hat, Barbara,” she said as she closed 
the front door on the diminishing whirr of a retreating 
motor. ‘‘ What a dear hat it is ! I do declare the little 
hats this year are prettier than anything that’s come and 
gone since I’ve been watching the flow and ebb of fashions 
these sixty odd years. So much more becoming than those 
hideous big things that showed only one eye. I believe I 
could wear one of this season’s hats myself.” 

Barbara held it up. ‘‘ Try it on. Gran. Do. Grand- 
mothers are wearing much gayer things than satin toques 
nowadays, you know.” 

Madam Collingwood held up her hand in mild protest. 
No, my dear. I might be tempted. And what would 
your dear father say if he should look in on me to-night — 
as I declare he does, you know, sometimes — and should 
see his old mother in such a gay bonnet ? ” 

‘‘ If people keep their sense of humor in heaven, he’d 
laugh,” said Barbara. “ I know he would. Gran.” 

“ At the absurdity of it.” 

‘‘ Not at all. At the wonderful way it became you.” 
The old lady patted her cheek. “ Dear bird,” she 
murmured. “ You can still say nice things when you want 
to.” She laid her light transparent hand on Barbara’s 
shoulder. “ Come into my parlor, said the spider to the 
fly. I started a little blaze on the hearth just for the com- 

114 


BARBARA PICKS A HUSBAND 


115 


panionship of it. Won’t you sit in this big chair? You 
must be cold from your ride. And you always liked to 
toast yourself. You see, my dear,” she added wistfully, 
I haven’t forgotten — the good old times.” 

This was the first approach either had made to the ten- 
der and happy past. Both knew that they must face it 
sooner or later, face its sad ending, talk it all over and 
out, before they could resume that sweet, broken friend- 
ship. Neither was ready for that ordeal as yet. Bar- 
bara, not daring to meet her grandmother’s eyes, turned 
toward the fire, rubbing her hands together dreamily. 

“ Have you had supper, dear? ” inquired the old lady 
after a pause. 

“ I had tea at five.” 

I’ll make you something.” 

Barbara jumped to her feet. ‘‘ Please don’t. I’m not 
hungry. Really. I didn’t come to eat anyway.” 

“ I’ll boil you an egg. Norah’s just stepped out to 
see a friend. I still have the Duchess, you know, and she 
looks more like a Duchess than ever. She’s going on 
sixty-odd. Dear, dear. I wish Time would wear the 
shoes now that he wore when I was your age. But he has 
graduated into seven-league boots. You stay in front of 
the fire. I’ll have that egg in a minute.” 

She silenced Barbara’s further objections with the light- 
est imaginable touch on her shoulder. Barbara knew that 
touch of old. It was Madam Collingwood’s medium of 
command. She sank back into the great arm-chair, sud- 
denly overcome by the bliss of being waited on by some one 
who neither adored her blindly nor blindly disapproved. 
She heard a dish tremble on another in the kitchen, she 
heard the flames crackle and flutter. She saw the same 
friendly, old-fashioned landscapes in the old-fashioned gilt 
frames, the knick-knacks, each with its story, the ebony 
cabinet with the little mirror, the tiny bust of Shake- 
speare on the ancient parlor grand, the porcelain vases 


116 


BARBARA PICKS A HUSBAND 


delicately painted, the porcelain-topped table, carefully 
mended after she herself had cracked it, with its painting 
of Europa and the bull against a stormy background 
of sea and cloud. Three years ! — and everything un- 
changed. It seemed incredible. Three years was an age. 
And again, three years was nothing, for here she was 
hearing her grandmother moving about in friendly, unob- 
trusive service, just as in the good old days, and she 
herself felt no older, for the moment. 

She closed her mind to the perplexing world. The fire 
made her drowsy. Exquisite relaxation came to her taut 
nerves. Faintly she heard her grandmother approaching. 
“ Oh, Gran,” she murmured. “ This is bliss.” Before the 
old lady could cross the room with her tea and toast and 
egg, Barbara was asleep. 

Madam Collingwood watched her. A slow smile seemed 
to kindle her face into a wistful glow. She nodded her 
head in thoughtful comprehension. “ Youth,” she was 
thinking, ‘‘ youth, after all, is the most difficult time of 
life. Old age is lonelier and middle age is sadder and 
manhood or womanhood is full of sharper contrasts of joy 
and pain, but youth is the most difficult time. Dear, dear ! 
If we could only be old for ten minutes before we are young 
for twenty years ! ” 

She set the tray on the hearth, pulled the tea-ball from 
the pot, and sank down into her own particular rocker, 
folding her hands and watching the antics of the flames. 
She had a face austere in repose, with a skin like parch- 
ment, faintly seamed and mottled over the cheek-bones. 
Her hair was jet black and she wore it parted in the mid- 
dle and brushed lightly down to an intricate web of flat 
braids covering her ears. There was not a gray strand in 
it, but the Duchess, and the Duchess only, knew that it 
had been growing sparse this past decade, so that the little 
black cap of lace and narrow velvet ribbons which had once 
been only a decoration was now a necessity. 


BARBARA PICKS A HUSBAND 


117 


She turned toward Barbara, and the look on her face 
was that of a mother watching over a sick child. She 
wondered what had happened to bring her back to the dis- 
carded refuge on Merlin Road; she wondered what had 
been happening these three years past. What did the 
young man in the automobile have to do with it all? 
What was Barbara’s mother thinking about it? Was 
Barbara engaged? Was she by any chance in love with a 
chauffeur? 

The old lady was filled with an almost overpowering 
curiosity. For three years not a day had passed that she 
had not thought of her only grandchild, wondering what 
she was thinking and doing, whether she was growing as 
she had once seemed to promise she would grow, or whether 
the city had stunted her, caged the gay, upsoaring bird 
in her, weakened her vision with meretricious dazzle ? And 
here the girl was at last, and Christian charity forbade 
even the slightest stir that might wake her. Madam Col- 
lingwood was tempted by the Devil to extort a well-known 
squeak from her rocker, but she pressed her lips together 
and withstood. It was a great deal of an ordeal for 
Barbara slept an hour. 

She returned to waking consciousness on the breath of 
a long, contented sigh. “ I’ve been asleep,” she murmured 
without turning, evidently aware without the testimony of 
her eyes that her grandmother was in her old, famihar 
chair. 

Madam Collingwood forced the rocker to give its squeak, 
merely to get the impulse out of her system. But other- 
wise she did not stir. 

‘‘ Perhaps you have been overdoing, my dear,” she 
suggested gently. 

Such a hint from Barbara’s mother would have drawn 
a volley of denials, but Barbara’s grandmother had always 
had privileges which Barbara had never granted her 
mother, mainly because she seemed more discriminating in 


118 


BARBARA PICKS A HUSBAND 


her criticism and did seem to have an almost uncanny 
understanding of Barbara’s problems, 

I have been going some,” said Barbara. 

‘‘ I can remember so well when I was your age,” her 
grandmother went on musingly. “ I was always doing 
too much. And my beaux were a dreadful strain.” 

“Is that tray for me.^ ” asked Barbara abruptly. 

“ Put it on that table, dear.” 

Barbara pushed back her chair and sank down on the 
floor beside the hearth. “ I don’t want a table. Gran. 
This is wonderful. Why, here’s that same dent in the 
tea-ball and the same onion-pattern dishes and the same 
tray — ” Her voice died away in reminiscent dreaming. 

“ We were a pair of silly girls, my dear,” said the old 
lady quietly, “ to quarrel the way we did. We should 
have trusted each other more. We should have trusted 
our friendship more. You were so changed when you 
came back from boarding-school that Spring three years 
ago, and I was ill and felt terribly old, and I must have 
forgotten my own youth. I am sure I must have for- 
gotten my own youth. For when I was seventeen I was 
giddy and silly and bold myself, just as you were, my 
dear, that Spring after your first year in boarding- 
school. But I forgot. I must have seemed cruel and 
harsh.” 

Barbara laid her hand quickly on her grandmother’s 
knee. “ Let’s forget all about that. Gran.” 

The old lady shook her head slowly. “ You can’t for- 
get such things, my dear. You can regain peace of mind 
only by facing them and conquering them and so taking 
out their sting. We were both cruel, Barbara. We had 
been such good friends, you know, that we felt we had a 
right to be frank.” She smiled, but there was pain in the 
smile. “We were both very frank. I don’t remember 
what I called you, my dear, but you called me a ‘ hyper- 
critical, horrid old woman.’ ” 


BARBARA PICKS A HUSBAND 


119 


Gran ! Forgive me.” 

Her grandmother nodded, still smiling. I never real- 
ized till too late that you had probably just learnt in 
school what ^ hypercritical ’ meant, and enjoyed using the 
word.” 

“ You called me vain and selfish and light-headed,” Bar- 
bara whispered, in self-defense. 

I daresay, I daresay. We were a pair of children. 
You see, all my dreams were of you, and I did want you 
to be big and fine. And that Spring I had an idea that I 
was drawing very near to the shadows. I did not expect 
to live more than six months, and it was a bitter grief to 
me that my last days seemed to be witnessing the wrecking 
of my dreams for you.” 

Barbara raised her teacup to her lips and set it down 
untouched, staring at the firelight. 

‘‘ I don’t know in what direction you have developed 
these three important years,” the old lady went on, more 
softly than before. “ You would not come near me, and 
your dear mother took your side, impulsively, I thought, 
without waiting to hear what I had to say. And so, for 
three years, I have been wondering. I have been quite 
sure a dozen times that the city had swallowed you, and 
then again I would remember the bird in you and have a 
happy doubt. You had great aspirations, Barbara. Do 
you remember? ” 

Barbara nodded, still staring at the flames, suddenly 
conscious of a lump in her throat. 

“ Life seems all a great volcano, doesn’t it? ” mused the 
old lady. It breaks out here and there and souls are 
buried under the ashes, but it breaks out worst in the city, 
obscuring the light. And the explosions darken and adul- 
terate the air for every one.” She paused and there was 
silence as her hand sought Barbara’s head, now pressed 
against her knee. She stroked the hair tenderly. “ Has 
the light been obscured a bit? ” 


120 


BARBARA PICKS A HUSBAND 


Again Barbara answered with a thoughtful nod. She 
felt tears rising in her eyes. 

I know so well what you must have been going 
through,’’ her grandmother went on in the same quiet 
voice. I have remembered often lately what I forgot 
when we quarreled — how difficult I found life when I was 
your age. New York was a different New York then, and 
a girl’s place in society was fixed and there were set rules 
of conduct and distinctions were sharp. Life was, by so 
much, more easy to live. And yet it was difficult even then. 
Even in the late fifties some of us girls had our doubts of 
the justice of things, and they made us restless. There 
were times when every man, even my father, seemed an en- 
emy ; times when I would have given anything to become a 
nun. I had a dozen beaux and I remember it seemed to 
me at first I loved them all. They were so nice. And they 
were just beaux, writing verses and sending bouquets and 
serenading me. Imagine serenading a girl in New York 
nowadays. Then suddenly one of my girl friends became 
engaged. It was a terrible shock somehow. I hadn’t 
thought we were so close to real life. There were times 
when I fought like a wild animal cornered. I think I must 
have done outrageous things, for my brothers lectured 
me and my mother and father scolded day and night.” 

“Did you ever lie.?” asked Barbara timidly, with her 
eyes still fixed on the hearth where the flames were singing 
now from blackened logs more than half consumed. 

Again the old lady stroked Barbara’s hair. “ Indeed, 
I did,” she whispered. “ I lied like a dragoon.” 

“ You couldn’t. Gran ! ” 

“ My dear, I was just an everyday girl, like you; with 
high standards, too ; but I was fighting for my life. 
Haven’t you ever been tempted.? ” 

“ I’m — different.” 

The old lady shook her head. “ No. You are very 
much as I was at your age.” 


BARBARA PICKS A HUSBAND 


121 


There was a long pause. At last Barbara broke it 
with a deep sigh and spoke. “ Did you ever have any — 
any doubts at all before you married grandpa. You 
know — did you ever imagine — for a minute — that some 
one else might — do — j ust as well, that you might pos- 
sibly — be happy — or fairly happy — with any one of 
two — or three ” 

Madam Collingwood did not answer for a long time. 
Barbara thought at last that she did not intend to answer 
at all and felt guilty for asking a clumsy question. She 
turned and looked up at her grandmother’s face. The 
firelight gave the cheeks a glow that was almost feverish 
and made her eyes seem darker and more full of youthful 
fire than she had ever seen them. 

“ Your grandfather was a good man,” said the old lady 
finally. “ But we were very unhappy. I let myself think 
and question and deliberate so long that I became bewil- 
dered. I betrayed my natural feelings by too much argu- 
ment and weighing of this and that. I took your grand- 
father on an impulse because I was weary to death of the 
struggle.” 

“ Gran ! ” whispered Barbara breathlessly. 

“ The man I should have married was a business-man 
from Ohio. He was uncouth, even vulgar, but I loved 
him. I found it out before I had been married to your 
grandfather a month. And I love him just the same to- 
day.” Her voice had a tender melodiousness like some 
melancholy folk tune. 

“ Is he still living ” Barbara asked softly. 

‘‘ No. He died long ago. He was Governor of his 
State before he died, one of its greatest governors. They 
spoke of him for President.” 

“ Did he ever marry ” 

“ Yes, indeed. I correspond with his sons now and 
then.” 

Was he happy? ” 


122 


BARBARA PICKS A HUSBAND 


“I think he was very happy. It is only justice that, 
since the mistake was all mine, the loss should all have been 
mine, too.” 

They did not speak for a long time, but the old lady did 
not cease caressing Barbara’s hair. “Dear child!” she 
murmured after the long silence. “ Life is a good deal 
of a struggle underneath the surface of gayety, isn’t it? 
It is a struggle always, first to get happiness, then to 
keep it ; and when we do lose it at last, there is the struggle 
to hold the head high and the vision untainted. I am used 
to struggle, and I would not want to miss it now. But I 
remember at your age, nothing seemed so desirable as 
the end of striving, peace, a secure haven. That hunger 
was what betrayed me into my mistaken choice. Beware 
of the desire for peace, my bird, when there is no peace 
without or within.” 

Again a long silence. Then the voice of Barbara, 
faintly as though from a great distance : “ Mother thinks 

I am just a bundle of vanity and conceit and selfishness. 
I suppose I do give that impression. I’d give a lot if that 
were the whole story, as Mother thinks it is.” She uttered 
a sharp exclamation, too brief and bitter to be either a 
laugh or a sigh. 

“ I suppose people think I’m just a hard-hearted flirt,” 
she went on. “ I know Mother does. If she wants to 
think that, why, she’s welcome to. I bluff it out. I’m 
bluffing half the time, with her and with everybody. You 
know how it is. Gran. People expect certain things of 
you and, well, you give them what they’re looking for. 
It’s a part of the game. Some people expect me to make 
them laugh and some expect me to flirt with them and 
Mother just expects to be shocked every minute. And 
half the time, all I want is to curl up in front of a fire 
like this, and have a chance to think things out. But I 
never have time somehow. You get into a sort of tread- 
mill, you know, and it’s easier to keep going than to stop. 


BARBARA PICKS A HUSBAND 123 

Do you remember ever having that feeling when you were 
my age? ” 

“ My dear,” whispered the old lady, ‘‘ every word you 
say seems like an echo from my own youth.” 

“ It’s wonderful to have you — understand. I’ve been 
— rather lonely these three years. Mother hates me, you 
know.” 

My dear child ! Your mother adores you.” 

Barbara gave a snort. 

“ My dear ! ” protested the old lady mildly. 

I beg your pardon. Gran. I guess Mother’s been 
getting on my nerves.” 

“ Perhaps you have been getting on her nerves, too. 
Did you ever think of that? ” 

“ She doesn’t like me. Mother’s horribly unselfish, 
you know. Her unselfishness almost makes me want to 
scream sometimes. And she does everything for me. She 
thinks it’s her duty. It isn’t because she loves me. She 
doesn’t, I know,** Barbara was nigh to tears. 

It occurred to Madam Collingwood that Barbara’s 
mother was not at the moment the topic best suited to 
soothe Barbara’s jangled nerves and to clarify her vision. 
“ Haven’t you had any other close friends — girls and 
boys ? ” she asked with a keen glance alert for any betray- 
ing flush on the cheek turned to her. 

Barbara frowned slightly, that was all. 

Is there a lover, or isn’t there? ” the old lady asked 
herself.) 

“ I have a lot of girl friends,” Barbara answered at 
last. “ Two of them are fairly intimate friends, I sup- 
pose. We go together a lot, but we’re not really close. 
I don’t tell them things. Then I’ve got some men friends, 
of course.” She hesitated. 

“ Have you? ” asked the old lady, prompting, after a 
silence that threatened to have no end. She was perish- 
ing with curiosity. 


1^4 


BARBARA PICKS A HUSBAND 


“ Especially three,” murmured Barbara, somewhat 
cryptically. 

“Was that one of them in the automobile?” asked 
Madam Collingwood, leaning forward. 

“ Yes.” 

“ Was that the one? ” 

“ Oh, my, no ! That was just Tom Faraway.” 

“ He seemed to have a pleasant voice.” 

Barbara nodded slowly. “ His voice is nice enough,” 
she said. 

“ Who are the other two ? Do you mind telling me ? ” 

“No. I think I’m rather glad — to have a chance to 
talk to some one — who isn’t prejudiced. One of them is 
a boy named Chester Howell. He’s awfully nice and full 
of fun and very rich and he thinks that he thinks a lot of 
me. He’s a lightweight, rather, and they say he used to 
drink a lot in college and have chorus-girls on a string. 
But they all do that.” 

“ Not all,” the old lady interposed gently at the risk 
of upsetting the whole story. “ Your grandfather was 
good even as a very young man. I was always grateful 
for that.” 

“ I guess men have changed then,” said Barbara shortly. 
“ There’s not a boy I know that I’d trust around the 
corner with a chorine ; except possibly Tom.” 

“ The young man in the automobile ? ” 

“ Yes.” 

Madam Collingwood nodded sagely. “ I see.” 

“ Chester has the dearest mother in the world. She’s 
German by birth, but she isn’t a bit — well, you know, 
beery. She’s read everything, but she never parades her 
reading, the way Mrs. Paraway does. You just feel that 
it’s all gone into the building of a wonderful heart. She’s 
so quiet and tender and not a bit sentimental, the way one 
imagines Germans. She’s pro-German, of course, but she 
doesn’t talk much about it. She lets Chester do that. 


BARBARA PICKS A HUSBAND 


125 


You just feel all the time that night and day, whatever 
she’s doing, in her heart she is praying for the triumph 
of what she believes is the right side. I never saw such 
faith.” 

Are you sure, my dear,” remarked the old lady, that 
you are not in love rather with the mother than with the 
son? ” 

I hadn’t thought of that,” said Barbara seriously. 
“ She’d make an ideal mother-in-law. And she wants so 
much to have me marry Chester. She’s told me so her- 
self. That’s a wonderful feeling, you know. I can’t help 
thinking of that whenever I think of Chester.” 

“ I can understand your feeling that way. But after 
all, whatever the humorists say, one does marry the man 
and not the mother-in-law.” 

‘‘ I suppose so,” mused Barbara as though the point 
were debatable. “ You see, Tom’s mother and father de- 
test me. They just make me stick out quills whenever I 
come near them.” 

“ Naturally, that wouldn’t help matters, would it? ” 

“ His mother’s a horrible high-brow anyway, and his 
father’s a stick. Tom might turn out to be both.” 

You said there was a third? ” 

“ Yes.” 

You like him the best, don’t you? ” 

How did you know ? ” 

One generally leaves the best to the last.” 

“ But I’m not sure he is — the best.” 

The dearest — then.” 

“ I’m not sure even about that. It’s funny. He stirs 
me all up. He can make me so happy I seem to forget 
everything else in the world, and then suddenly he’ll look 
at me or touch me in a way that’ll give me the creeps. 
I just want to run away then and hide — sort of — sort 
of — ashamed. D’you know. Gran? ” 

He’s handsome, I suppose? ” 


126 


BARBARA PICKS A HUSBAND 


Wonderfully.” 

« Urn.” 

“ What are you thinking, Gran? You look solemn.” 

« Is he — fast?” 

Barbara hesitated. ‘‘ I heard that he was — in college. 
He only stayed there a short time.” 

I see. And I suppose he has a great deal of money ? ” 

“ His father has millions.” 

‘‘ He sounds a little perilous to me, Barbara dear.” 
The old lady made the remark timidly, not knowing how 
much criticism Barbara’s love for this gay youth would 
stand. 

But Barbara neither flinched nor did she show resent- 
ment. “ I’ve thought that myself. Gran,” she admitted 
slowly, crumpling a bit of toast absentmindedly. “ Last 
night I was positive I wouldn’t marry him or anybody else. 
But you know how it is. Thinks look differently at dif- 
ferent times.” She paused, then she added dreamily, “ I 
would have gone to the ends of the earth with him this 
afternoon.” 

“ Has he asked you to marry him ? ” 

“I — think — so.” 

‘‘Have you accepted him? Don’t answer if you don’t 
want to, dear. But I am so deeply interested. Have you 
accepted him? ” 

“I — don’t — know.” She paused again. “No, I 
haven’t,” she added emphatically. “ Of course, I haven’t. 
But some one has started the report that we’re en- 
gaged.” 

The old lady leaned forward quickly and laid both hands 
about Barbara’s head, still resting on her lap. “ Dear 
bird,” she cried tenderly. “ Are they trying to force you 
to a decision ? Dear bird, dear bird ! ” 

Barbara sat bolt upright with a quick turn facing her 
grandmother. “ I hadn’t thought of that,” she cried. 
“ But that’s exactly what they’re trying to do, Delia and 


BARBARA PICKS A HUSBAND 127 

Ruth and whoever started that rumor that Cleve and I 
were engaged. They’re trying to coerce me.” 

She rose quickly to her feet and took a step or two 
toward the fire, resting her brow against the shelf of the 
mantel. “ It’s like a net and everybody I know and de- 
pend on — everybody but you — is pulling on the strings 

— Mother, Tom, Chester, Mrs. J ardine, Cleve, Ruth, 
Delia, and the Paraways and Mrs. HoweU. They won’t 
leave me alone — to solve my own problem. They’re all 
trying to push me this way or that, for their own ends 
or to satisfy their own prejudices or just for the sake of 
gossip or the mushy satisfaction of seeing two more people 
hitched up for better or worse. They won’t patch things 
up afterwards if they go wrong, and more than half the 
marriages do go wrong.” 

“ Not more than half,” protested the old lady. 

“ I don’t mean divorce,” Barbara explained, “ but just 
dullness and emptiness, the dead level. I don’t want that 
kind of marriage. I’d rather die now and be done with it. 
I want to be free and happy. I want to grow. I don’t 
want to turn into a fat doll. I want to keep on growing 

— like you.” 

Madam Collingwood looked up and there was a glow in 
her eyes. Barbara’s own eyes were glowing, hot. Her 
spirit was in that cry, though the impulse behind it had 
lain dormant and unexpressed in the cobwebbed attic-cor- 
ners of her mind these three years and more. Barbara’s 
mother, hearing it, would have had the happiest moment 
of her life. 

“ Keep up the fighting spirit, my dear,” said her grand- 
mother at last. “ Keep that alive — always.” 

Barbara’s brow was pressed against the mantel-shelf 
again as she stared down at the black and carmine of the 
dying fire. “ I want to. Gran,” she murmured. “ I want 
to. Really. But sometimes it’s hard. Harder now than 
it used to be. I’ve lost pep, somehow. Lots of people 


128 


BARBARA PICKS A HUSBAND 


seem to get everything they want without fighting, just 
by forgetting some things. You know? And ignoring 
others. Just by giving in. Money, social position and 
all that. Of course, you can say that they probably find 
that all that doesn’t make them happy. But in lots of 
cases it does. They lose the fine edge, but once they’ve 
really lost it, they’re just as happy without it. Happier 
even, sometimes. I’ve got the remnants of a fine edge, and 
it just makes me miserable.” 

She laughed mirthlessly. After a moment she went on : 
“ I keep thinking. What’s the use ? I’ve lost my enthu- 
siasm. Nobody can fight forever. Not even a man. 
Even in Europe now they don’t go on fighting hour after 
hour and week after week and month after month. They 
rest, and throw biscuits at the enemy instead of bombs, and 
sing songs at each other. But I don’t seem to get any 
rest. I’m tired. I’m tired to death. There’s no more 
fight in me.” 

She raised her head with obvious difficulty, and stared 
with tearless unhappiness at the dim, dark painting of 
Lake Lucerne that hung over the mantel. It carried her 
back to her childhood. She had often sat before it won- 
dering whether that white thing in the center was a snow- 
peak or a cloud. It occurred to her now that the artist 
himself did not appear to have been certain. 

“ You ought to go off for a bit,” suggested the old lady, 
“ away from all your beaux. Time and space are the 
wisest of gardeners. They weed and thin out, and give 
the rare flower a chance to lift its head and breathe and 
grow. I have my little garden here, and I have lost so 
much by weeding a day too late.” 

“ But don’t you see. Gran,” Barbara said, “ I can’t go 
away. I can’t put off things indefinitely. I have to de- 
cide now, to-day or to-morrow. That’s the ghastly part 
of it. Cleve Winsor has to go back to Minneapolis Mon- 
day night, and I’ll have to tell him then, definitely, or — or 


BARBARA PICKS A HUSBAND 129 

— I’ll never have another chance. You know how those 
things are.” 

Poor dear ! ” murmured the old lady, But since so 
much of it is a gamble, Barbara, wouldn’t it be wiser to 
let him go without a decision now, and, since you are tak- 
ing chances anyway, take a chance on his coming back for 
you.^ If he really loves you, you know — ” 

Barbara pondered. ‘‘ Yes. That seems more reason- 
able. But men are funny. He might think I had just 
been flirting with him, and deliberately make himself for- 
get me. He would be angry, I’m sure, for he came East 
just to get my answer. And I’ve been holding him off. 
I let him kiss me in the pantry last night, but when I 
realized what I’d done I nearly struck him. I felt as if I 
could have killed him. If I can’t tell him definitely before 
he leaves on Monday, he’ll never come back. I know it. 
And all my life I shall be thinking that I threw away my 
happiness, because I was spineless and couldn’t make 
up my mind.” 

She was silent a full minute; then she shook herself as 
though to cast off a nightmare. “ I’ve been feeling as 
though the demons were after me ever since he came two 
days ago, little red imps with prongs, shouting ‘ Make up 
your mind, make up your mind ! ’ ” She tried to laugh. 
“ It’s rather ghastly.” 

She turned slowly and, supporting a hand on either side 
of her grandmother’s chair, bent over the old lady, and 
kissed her. Madam Collingwood’s arms went round her 
neck and drew her close. My bird ! ” she whispered. 

‘‘ Would you mind if I went to bed? ” 

‘‘ My dear, my dear ! Remember you’re at home here.” 

‘‘ So I am. It’s a wonderful feeling. Good night. 
Gran.” 

‘‘ May I — tuck you in ? ” 

‘‘ May you? ” 

They went upstairs together with their arms about each 


130 


BARBARA PICKS A HUSBAND 


other’s waists. That was at nine o’clock. The Duchess, 
tall, imposing, white-haired, returning from her evening 
out shortly after ten, heard voices as she passed the door 
of the guest-chamber, and wondered. She kept herself 
awake with a dime novel and at eleven tiptoed down one 
flight to spread, as her custom was, an unnecessary extra 
blanket over her aged mistress. Her mistress was not in 
bed. The same voices were still coming from the same 
room. At midnight, she repeated her visitation, frown- 
ing and looking mightily like Lady Macbeth as she de- 
scended the stairs. 

She heard Madam Collingwood say, with a tender little 
laugh : “ Hush ! I’ve got to go to bed. The Duchess 

is after me.” 

But the Duchess waited in the old lady’s room for 
fifteen minutes and the old lady did not come. She went 
into the corridor again at twelve-twenty, listening for 
the voices in the guest-chamber. The younger voice was 
silent now, but the older voice was humming softly and ever 
more softly over and over again : 

“ Curly lochs, curly lochs, wilt thou be mine? 

Thou shalt not wash dishes, nor yet feed the swine; 

But sit on a cushion, and sew a fine seam. 

And feast upon strawberries, sugar, and cream.^^ 

Is it the little bird that’s come back? ” murmured the 
Duchess. “ I’ll set some hominy on the fire. Sure it’s the 
fatted calf she’ll be wantin’ to slay for the coming back of 
her bird.” 


XVI 


W HEN she awoke next morning, Barbara discovered 
to her surprise that the day was Sunday. A 
church bell afar off sent that fact faintly tintinnabulating 
through her consciousness. The bells had a right to ring, 
Barbara considered dreamily, for sunshine was pouring in 
through the half open window, as though to celebrate the 
exit of the most leonine March in the memory of the oldest 
inhabitant. She lounged on her pillows. She heard no 
stir in the house, but after a half hour or so she heard a 
stir outside — the distant whirr of a motor, increasing 
rapidly ; then the sound, of a clutch thrown out and the 
fainter sound of tires sliding before the car came to a stop. 
Tom was growing careless. She would have to admonish 
him for such extravagant use of his shoes, these days of 
high rubber. The fact that Tom’s father in all proba- 
bility paid for the tires made the matter so much worse. 

She drew up a very convincing case against Tom Fara- 
way during the hour she gave to her apparelling. That 
was the trouble with rich men’s sons, she concluded, par- 
ticularly those who had never had to work with their 
hands: they had no idea of the value of money. Cleve 
Winsor had done manual labor, and by so much he was 
the safer gamble. The window of her room faced away 
from the street, and it was not until she went down to 
breakfast that, glancing out of a northern casement in the 
corridor, she discovered to her amazement that the auto- 
mobile was not the familiar gray runabout at all, but a 
flaming red racer and the man in it was not Tom Faraway, 
but Cleve Winsor. She arrived at the breakfast table in 
a perturbed state of mind. 


131 


13 ^ 


BARBARA PICKS A HUSBAND 


The old ladj asked no questions, though Barbara knew 
that she could not help being aware of the presence of the 
automobile at her curb. She had had breakfast hours ago 
and insisted on waiting on Barbara herself, hovering 
about her like some airy wood-fay, luring a mortal to for- 
sake the insubstantial world for the sweet substance of her 
spiritual domain. 

It was as though the old lady felt that Barbara’s eter- 
nal salvation depended on her staying only a little while 
longer in Merlin Road. She did not beg her to stay. Her 
spirit was not of the sort that could beg. She said, “ I 
wish you could stay with me to-day,” and Barbara an- 
swered, ‘‘ I wish I could. Gran, but I can’t.” And that 
was all there was to it, save for the old lady’s gentle 
service. 

She lingered about after breakfast, obviously restless. 
Madam Collingwood saw that she had something on her 
mind, and sent the Duchess, who was sticking closer than a 
brother, kitchenwards. But if she hoped for a return of 
the confiding mood of the evening before she was des- 
tined to be disappointed, for Barbara had her armor on 
once more and moved about the rooms aimlessly, uncom- 
municative, unresponsive. 

The old lady’s heart ached for her evident perplexity. 

The trouble was, that Barbara was trying to solve four 
insistent questions at once: Why didn’t Tom appear 
How had Cleve Winsor found out where she was.? Had 
his mood changed again, since that cloud of resentment 
had crossed it in the “ Purple Cow ”.? Would it be wise or 
not to introduce him to her grandmother.? 

She decided that it would not be wise. Her grand- 
mother would disapprove ; and she might allow herself to 
be influenced by her grandmother’s disapproval. She did 
not want to be influenced. So that matter was decided. 
The other questions she could wrinkle her brows over for a 
century without result. She decided that two of them 


BARBARA PICKS A HUSBAND 


133 


could be answered only by the gentleman in the car out- 
side. The other, first and last in her mind, she decided 
was a silly question, not worthy of consideration. If Tom 
did not care enough, etc. — why — 

Barbara sped northwards at Cleve Winsor’s side with 
the April air strangely balmy against her cheeks, and 
her grandmother’s last whispered words ringing in her 
ears : “ Remember, my dear, that you will never in the 

world find happiness by surrender. Pight, fight, and then 
fight. Good-by.” She was glad that the old lady had 
given her that last spur. She felt ready for battle. The 
day was clear, she herself felt stronger and fresher than 
she had felt for months. She had slept wonderfully, and 
for the first time she was confident that she could cope 
with her dozen adversaries, drawing at the ropes of the 
net. 

Cleve Winsor, once more wholeheartedly ardent, was do- 
ing all the talking. When he began by mentioning the 
“ Purple Cow,” Barbara admitted that explanations 
seemed to her in order. She said this a trifle coldly, de- 
ciding that if Cleve was about to be penitent, she might as 
well let him grovel a bit before she forgave. He had 
called up Barbara’s mother on the telephone, it seemed, 
and bluntly asked her whether Barbara had told any one 
that she and himself were engaged. “ ‘ She told Tne^ said 
your mother,” Winsor went on. 

‘‘I was bluffing,” said Barbara quickly. ‘‘I just 
wanted to get her mad. I didn’t mean — ” 

That’s all right,” he answered, a little grandly, Bar- 
bara thought. “ But say, your mother nearly bit my 
head off over the ’phone. I told her the engagement was 
out. She was nicer then and said it was all terribly 
humiliating, but that Mrs. Paraway had misunderstood 
something or other which that young Paraway had said 
I’d said, and tooted the glad tidings all over town.” 


134 


BARBARA PICKS A HUSBAND 


“ Mrs. Paraway ! ” cried Barbara. What do you 
know about that.^^” 

She frowned, trying to puzzle it out. 

“ Then I asked your mother where you were. I felt I 
just had to see you somehow to straighten things out 
with you after the tea-room business. I couldn’t wait. 
I just couldn’t. Your mother said you were still out. I 
asked her where and she said out of town. That got me 
mad, because you’d said you were going straight home. 
I thought she was just trying to put me off, and I guess 
I told her so pretty straight.” 

Barbara felt her sense of loyalty faintly stirring. For 
the first time she found herself taking her mother’s part 
against Young Lochinvar. I’m sorry if you were rude,” 
she said calmly. I don’t like to have my mother think 
that my friends haven’t any manners. That rather re- 
flects on me, doesn’t it.^ ” 

He agreed penitently that it did. “ She hung up on 
me,” he went on. “ I tried to get her again, but the butler 
answered and said she was engaged. I told him I’d give 
him a five dollar bill the next time I saw him if he’d get 
your mother on the ’phone.” 

“ You didn’t ! ” cried Barbara, flushing, 

“ I did ! ” he retorted hotly, conscious that he had evi- 
dently committed something akin to a crime and deter- 
mined to brazen it out. “ And I’d have made it a hundred 
if he’d given me a chance. But the old fool hung up too. 
So I went to the house.” 

“ Did you.^ ” she asked apprehensively. 

Oh, don’t worry,” he cried harshly. “ I didn’t flour- 
ish a gun.” 

‘‘ I didn’t say that I thought you would.” 

“ I’m sorry,” he went on more quietly. ‘‘ Your fam- 
ily gets on my nerves — the whole house — your mother 
and your friends and your butlers — they’re all so con- 
founded easy and refined.” 


BARBARA PICKS A HUSBAND 


135 


‘‘ A little refinement isn’t a bad thing, you know,” Bar- 
bara remarked, somewhat pointedly. 

He answered humbly. “ I know. I haven’t got 
enough. I’m a lumberjack, I’m rough. I’m a man’s 
man. I’m not fit for parlors.” A hint of truculence 
crept into his voice. 

‘‘ You were going to tell me what happened when you 
went to the house ” 

‘‘ Nothing happened,” he muttered gruffly. “ That is, 
nothing serious.” 

‘‘ Something did happen, though ? ” 

‘‘ Well, it wasn’t my fault.” 

What was it? Tell me. Please, Cleve.” 

Well, that fool of a butler said your mother was out. 
I told him as nicely as I could that I knew she wasn’t 
and that I intended to see her. He said there was noth- 
ing doing. So I said, all right, I’d wait. He said I 
couldn’t wait. He had his orders. We were arguing the 
thing out when your mother came downstairs. I asked 
her where you were and she finally said you were still out 
burning up the roads, in that man Paraway’s car, and that 
was all she would say. I was just going to give in and 
agree that she had me, when along comes your friend Tom 
in his bubble and joins the party. 

‘ Where’s Barbara ? ’ asks your mother, worried. 

* I dropped Bee off at Fordham,’ he says. 

Your mother couldn’t understand why you should 
want to stay in Fordham. 

“ ‘ She’s up at her grandmother’s,’ said Tom. 

“ Your mother seemed surprised. 

“ ‘ Where does she live? ’ I ask. 

* Wouldn’t you like to know? ’ says he, looking mad. 

‘ Sure I would,’ I told him. ‘ And I’m going to. 
What’s her name? ’ 

‘‘ ‘ None of your blamed business,’ he says.” 

Barbara’s face was crimson to the hair. She was biting 


136 


BARBARA PICKS A HUSBAND 


her lips with mortification. ‘‘ What happened then.^ ” she 
asked timidly, almost afraid to hear. 

“ Nothing happened then,” he answered. “ I know 
some things, and I don’t knock a man down in the pres- 
ence of ladies. I put on my hat and went out.” 

Barbara heaved a sigh of relief. “ Well, I am glad.” 

He grunted. They were in the open country by now, 
with the hills of Westchester, rugged and wild, about 
them. “ He didn’t get away from me, though.” 

“ Heavens ! ” cried Barbara. What do you mean? ” 

“ I mean that I waited for him outside and when he 
came down the stoop to get into his car, I got out of it 
and told him to tell me where he had left you.” 

“ You didn’t ! ” 

He laughed a short, hard laugh. “ Didn’t I though? ” 
And he told you? ” The words were more sighed than 
spoken. 

“ If I was a blackguard, I suppose I’d teU you that he 
did and let you think he was a whining coward. But I’m 
square. You can’t say I’m not, and he can’t either. I 
may not be as perfumed as your butler or your mama’s 
boys from hereabout, but I’m square. And no one can 
say I’m not.” 

His voice was sullen. Barbara saw in a flash that Cleve 
was ashamed of himself, and felt suddenly sorry for him, in 
spite of her mortification. 

“ I know you’re square, Cleve,” she said. That’s why 
I like you.” 

He did not answer, but stared ahead at the bright road, 
his lips working. 

“ What happened when you asked him where I was ? ” 
asked Barbara at last. 

“ He told me to go to hell.” You would not say that 
these words were spoken. They seemed to escape furtively 
from between the locked jaws. 

Barbara could not for the life of her take that state- 


BARBARA PICKS A HUSBAND 


ISI 


merit with due seriousness. Something within her gave a 
glad shout and before she knew it, her head was high and 
she was laughing with a silver gayety to make the stars 
rejoice beneath their coverlet of blue. 

Winsor’s face was black. “ I’m glad you think it’s so 
funny,” he muttered, bending over the wheel. 

She checked the irresponsible outburst, but the subsid- 
ing merriment seemed still to bubble about the edges of 
her words, when she spoke. “ I didn’t know that Tom 
ever swore.” 

“ He didn’t swear much, but he swore hard before I 
was through with him,” Young Lochinvar muttered into 
space. 

“ What did you do ? ” she asked breathlessly, feeling no 
desire to laugh now. 

“ I knocked him down,” he said. 

“ Cleve ! ” she exclaimed. “ You didn’t ! ” 

“ Don’t tell me I didn’t all the time when I tell you I 
did.” 

“ You’re getting rude.” There was a cool note of 
warning in her tone. 

He made a despairing gesture with one hand. “ Oh, 
hang it, I don’t want to be rude. I know I’m a roughneck, 
but I love you, and I don’t want you to get away from 
me. Don’t you understand.^ I don’t suppose you do. 
You eastern girls are so used to your mama’s-boys, you 
get scared when you come face to face with a real man. 
I suppose it wasn’t refined to make a fuss at your mother’s. 
But I wanted to find you, and it didn’t make any differ- 
ence to me what I said or did as long as I did find you. 
What’s the good of being polite if you lose the one thing 
in the world that you want. If anything’s worth hav- 
ing, it’s worth fighting for. And I’m a fighter. I’m a 
fighter to the last bell.” 

Barbara, with heaving breast, gave him a frightened, 
sidelong glance. He was bending far over the wheel ; his 


1S8 


BARBARA PICKS A HUSBAND 


eyes were like furnaces. He had flung aside his cap. His 
hair looked wild in the wind. She sank back, gasping a 
little, and glanced at the speedometer. It was registering 
fifty miles and creeping up. 

“ If you or your family think they’ve got to do with 
just another of those china lapdogs,” he went on, “ you’re 
going to find out something. That’s all I can say. 
You’re going to find out something. I’ve got red blood 
in my veins, and I’ve been used to having things my own 
way, and I’ve never been balked yet, and by Jesus 
Christ — ” 

She laid her hand on his arm and leaned close to his ear. 
‘‘ Hadn’t we better slow down a bit ” 

She heard him give a cry that was like a sob, and the 
next instant his right arm was about her and he was 
pressing her to him. ‘‘ Barbara ! ” he cried. 

“ Cleve ! Look out ! Let me go ! ” She tried to fight 
free. “The car!” 

He seemed to have forgotten all about the car. It zig- 
zagged from one side of the road to the other for a frac- 
tion of a minute. Then — 

They saw the crash coming. 

They seemed to have hours to contemplate its approach 
and probable consequences, and not a second to avert 
them. They both gasped and instinctively made ready to 
jump, but it was too late for anything except the im- 
pulse. They heard the grinding, splintering crash one 
moment ; and the next, they were spitting and sputtering 
in the icy waters of one of New York’s auxiliary reser- 
voirs. 

Her furs kept Barbara afloat until Winsor had shaken 
off his own fur coat, and could swim to where she was 
floundering, twenty feet away. She was dazed and trem- 
bling on the edge of consciousness and did not understand 
when he told her to lay her hand on his shoulder. So he 
dragged her shoreward as he would a dead sturgeon. He 


BARBARA PICKS A HUSBAND 


139 


struck bottom after two or three strokes, and carried her 
then, looking for all the world like a very wet muskrat. 
He was in his element, and he laid her down on the peb- 
bly beach with all the proverbial tenderness of strong, 
brave men. 

Cleve Winsor had always insisted that, if only for med- 
ical reasons, every red-blooded man should be armed with 
a brandy-flask. He drew one forth now. Barbara 
loathed the stuff and her protests did as much as the alco- 
hol to quicken the blood again in her veins. She sat up. 

“ Jee-rusalem ! ” she cried, trying to catch her breath. 
“ What happened ? ” 

He looked up at the retaining wall that rose six feet 
above the narrow strip of pebbles. I have an idea,” 
he remarked, ‘‘ that we hit a telegraph pole with one head- 
light and a stone balustrade with the other. Either 
ought to have killed us, but I don’t feel dead. Do you? ” 

Barbara shuddered. 

“ Hurt anywhere ? ” he asked anxiously. 

She shook her head. Then faintly, “ Are you? ” 

“ Not a scratch.” 

He saw her suddenly go pale and close her eyes. He 
thought that she was about to faint and sat down quickly 
beside her to support her, again pressing the flask to her 
lips. But she was not the fainting sort ; besides, the pros- 
pect of another dose of Cleve’s favorite brandy was enough 
to bring any young lady with the instinct of self-preserva- 
tion strong within her, back to full consciousness. “ Close 
shave,” she murmured, opening her eyes once more, and 
gently pushing Cleve’s liquid fire to a safe distance. 

“ Well, I guesSy^ he answered. “ More luck than sense. 
My fault, too.” He smiled ruefully. “ I was just tell- 
ing you a minute ago that I w^as a roughneck. I’m always 
getting smashed up somehow. I guess I’m a rough dia- 
mond. That is, if you concede that I’m a diamond,” he 
added, with an attractive, whimsical look Barbara had 


140 


BARBARA PICKS A HUSBAND 


not seen on his face before. “ I’ll admit that I’m rough.” 

“ You’re very nice,” she said, after a pause, gazing out 
across the faintly ruffled water, “ and I’m very cold,” she 
added, shivering. 

He threw his arms about her, not passionately at all, 
but with a pleasant suggestion of protection. But she 
was not ready even for that. “ I think I prefer the lap- 
robe,” she said, with a quick upward glance of her eyes, 
searching his, if there’s anything left of it.” 

He climbed the steep retaining-wall and found the car 
over-turned and resting as it were with one paw upon the 
balustrade and its nose wedged between the wall and the 
telegraph pole. There was not much of it to salvage. 
The balustrade, with its white cement not even chipped, 
looked like the parapet of Olympus gazing contemptuously 
at a defeated Titan. The laprobe lay across it, im- 
harmed, as though Barbara had carelessly flung it there in 
her parabolic passage. He carried it down and wrapped 
her in it. 

‘‘ How about it — dear? ” he whispered, suddenly timid. 

She gave him a quick smile, flushing. “ It’s wonderful,” 
she said gratefully. 

For an hour they sat there, undisturbed, for the day was 
young and, save for them, Westchester was as yet as free 
of motorists as a desert island. 

They stared out over the lake, saying very little. Bar- 
bara was thinking of those other words of her grand- 
mother’s : He was uncouth, even vulgar, but I loved 

him.” Again the glamor of the shopping expedition of 
the previous afternoon seemed to descend on all creation. 
She felt subdued and yet exalted, uncertain in her mind 
whether by the remembrance of the imminence of death or 
the prospect of the imminence of love. Again it seemed 
to her that the vexing world was far away and that she 
was alone in a magic land with the ideal lover of her 
dreams. The water and the ragged hills and the roads 


BARBARA PICKS A HUSBAND 


141 


like ribbons winding away into fairyland — all these added 
their whisper to the pervasive lure. She forgot all about 
the dreadful scene Cleve had described, not without a touch 
of bravado ; and then suddenly remembered that she had 
forgotten it, and asked carelessly, as though no wreck, no 
catapultic plunge into icy waters, no rescue, no hour of 
unmarred romance had intervened : What did Tom do 

after you had knocked him down.? ” 

Eh.? Oh! Tom.? ” he exclaimed. ‘‘ I was dreaming. 
I’d forgotten all about Tom. He.? Why, he got up and 
pitched into me. But he didn’t have a ghost of a show. 
He went down three times.” 

She gasped. ‘‘ He must have been plucky.” She said 
it half to herself, shivering a little. 

He was nervy enough. But, you see, I’m steel all over. 
The poor devil would have had as much show against a 
pile driver. Feel that,” he added, doubling his left arm. 

Barbara felt it timidly, as a good housewife will feel 
a chicken in a butcher-shop. ‘‘ Goodness ! ” she ex- 
claimed. 

He tossed his head ; but she fell into musing again, wish- 
ing that Cleve Winsor wouldn’t brag this way, and trying 
to fight off certain indignant appellants for entrance to 
her consciousness. She could not deceive herself about 
Cleve Winsor’s performance with her mother and with 
Tom. It was ghastly. There was no other word for it. 
He could be so tender and thoughtful. Surely the bru- 
tality was not ingrained. It was the bringing up, the 
environment. She could temper it surely. With patience 
and love surely she could subordinate the thug to the 
true man. 

A sudden thought chilled her. “ You’re sure Tom’s — 
not — seriously hurt.? ” 

‘‘ My, no ! ” he answered carelessly. He managed to 
get into his car on his own feet — with the help of the 
refined butler.” 


142 


BARBARA PICKS A HUSBAND 


“ What happened to you? ” 

He laughed easily. “Me? Oh, a nice watchman 
copped me and took me to the station house, but the ser- 
geant let me off for twenty-five. It cost me ten more to 
make the reporter who happened to be there keep the 
thing out of the papers.” He laughed shortly. “ It was 
worth it. But I didn’t get up to see you. My clothes 
were a sight, and I guess I was bleeding a bit. He caught 
me one on the nose once. I guess he’s studied boxing. 
He’s got a bag in his bedroom.” 

“ How do you know? ” asked Barbara innocently. 

He saw dangerous explanations ahead, but he dodged 
them in time. “ He told me so,” he remarked glibly. 

“ He was very weak as a boy. He’s built himself up by 
plain hard work, I guess.” This rather pensively from 
Barbara. 

I see.” The rapids were past. 

“ You haven’t told me yet how you found out where I 
was,” Barbara remarked after a pause. 

He laughed. “ Oh, that was easy. I went to the Yale 
Club to clean up, and just got one of the telephone opera- 
tors to telephone your mother to let her know that Mr. 
Paraway had asked his butler to tell Mrs. Collingwood 
he’d got home all right and would she mind telling him 
the street number of the house where Miss Barbara Col- 
lingwood was staying. Say! It just came over the wire 
like honey, number and street and name — everything I 
wanted.” 

The deception seemed to her rather cheap. “ Tom 
thought he might come this morning,” she remarked. 

He laughed. “ I guess Tom has a headache.” 

That seemed to her brutal, and she said so. He laughed 
again, less harshly. I guess it’s a brutal world,” he 
said. “ And only the fit survive. I’m going to see that I 
survive.” 

She saw indications of his savage mood, and shivered 


BARBARA PICKS A HUSBAND 


143 


a little, partly from fear, partly because she was really 
cold, partly to turn his thoughts into evener channels. 
The ruse, as much of it as was a ruse, succeeded, for he 
drew the robe more closely about her, suddenly all gen- 
tleness again. 

‘‘ I’d like to stay out here all day,” he said, ‘‘ but I 
shouldn’t wonder if I ought to take you home. The wall 
we came over keeps the wind off and the sun is warming 
up the wall, so it’s snug here and you probably aren’t feel- 
ing as wet as you are. But soaked clothes aren’t good 
for anybody.” He jumped to his feet and held out both 
hands. “ Come along.” 

“ I don’t want to go,” she whispered, more to the blue 
lake than to him. “ I don’t feel very wet, and when you’re 
as nice and gentle as that you make me want to stay all 
day, too.” 

He felt a thrill of exultation at his own power, instinc- 
tively saying the word she wanted at the moment most to 
hear. “ You must,” he said. The blending of gentleness 
and strength made her feel that she could be his devoted 
slave forever. She rose, with her eyes on his, saying noth- 
ing. The robe fell from her shoulders to the ground. 
He picked it up and laid it about her again. They were 
both as in a dream. ‘‘Now — now — now,” she was 
thinking, but he was saying to himself, “ Hold your horses, 
old man. Hold your horses.” For once he did hold his 
horses; and the sting of disappointment made the fires 
burn only the brighter within her, as he, who did know 
something about certain emotions of women, knew it would. 

He helped her up the retaining-wall, and for a minute 
they stood on the parapet, staring at the wrecked car. 
They said nothing. There was nothing to say, except 
“My God!” which he finally uttered with considerable 
reverence. Barbara, suddenly deathly pale again, bit 
her lip. They started tramping westward along the road 
they had come. Barbara, who was vague as to distances. 


144 


BARBARA PICKS A HUSBAND 


thought that they were about a mile or so from Briar- 
cliff. She turned the robe over to Winsor after a hundred 
yards and set off at a good three mile pace. An hour 
a^d a half brought them to Briarcliff station. She ad- 
mitted cheerfully that her calculations had been off by 
about three miles. 

Winsor secured a closed car and bundled her into it. 
Then he said good-by. She protested. “ Oh, aren’t you 
going along? ” Her disappointment was evident. 

I have an idea I’d better save what there is to save 
of our wrecked schooner,” he said. “ At least, I’d better 
have it hauled to a garage. I owe the old hulk decent 
burial, anyway. And the man I hired her of may hold me 
up for less if I can show him the corpse.” 

She agreed reluctantly that he probably knew best. 
Then he paid the chauffeur, gave him the address and 
once more thrust his head through the open window. “ I 
might as well tell you,” he said with pretended nonchal- 
ance, “ that I’ve decided to stay on another week.” 

Her heart gave a leap. “ How nice t ” she exclaimed, 
but the blood in her cheeks made up for the mildness of the 
words. When did you decide? ” 

“ On the last mile — just now.” 

She had no time to answer, for the chauffeur evidently 
thought that unless he made a start, no one would. With- 
out a word he threw in the clutch. The car was a mile 
nearer New York before Barbara had recovered from the 
sudden discovery that the space between herself and Cleve 
Winsor was widening at the rate of forty miles an hour. 


XVII 


I T was half past one as the car stopped before the 
CoUingwood house on West Fifty-seventh Street, and 
a bedraggled young lady stepped out and hurried up the 
stoop. A passerby, in Sunday bib and tucker, all fur and 
feathers, stopped in her tracks to see an apparent gutter- 
rat run up those stately brownstone steps as though they 
belonged to her; and the First Butler who condescended 
to answer her ring because the Second Butler was at that 
moment passing French peas to Mrs. CoUingwood, forgot 
himself to the extent of a shocked exclamation. 

He was a Nonconformist and a very respectable man, 
who had “ come out of the drink ” and was unspeakably 
proud of himself because of that fact, and consequently 
contemptuous of aU who did not seem to him to have 
achieved similar victories over the flesh and the Devil. 
For some time he had been inwardly prophesying a dread- 
ful future for Miss Barbara unless she began to mind 
her mother better. With the pious satisfaction of the 
successful prophet, he suddenly realized that his worst 
fears had been realized. It occurred to him that pos- 
sibly he had better give notice. With Miss Barbara’s 
young man starting a fight on the front stoop on Satur- 
day night and Miss Barbara herself appearing thus wrung 
out on Sunday afternoon, clearly the position of First 
Butler in so compromising a house was no longer tenable 
by a man with a sensitive moral nature. Besides, if things 
went on this way, his career would suffer. And he was 
only forty-five and for some time he had been edging 
steadily nearer the mansions of the great. The only 

145 


146 


BARBARA PICKS A HUSBAND 


difficulty was that he adored Mrs. Collingwood, as a man, 
for her spiritual fiber ; as a butler, for her efficiency. Life 
was complicated, he thought, and sighed. 

Barbara thought that the sigh was meant as a reproach 
for her, for she knew that the First Butler disapproved of 
her. She glanced in the hall mirror, and did not, this 
time, wonder at his disapproval. Her hair hung in 
strings, her satin hat was caked with a coat of sooty 
mud, her nose and chin were grimy, her clothes, always 
conspicuous for their flare, their something which only a 
French word or two can suggest, her dashing clothes 
were limp and spiritless. She looked a very picture of the 
Erring Daughter’s Return. That is, all of her except 
her eyes. But of course the Butler, being discreet, did 
not venture to look into her eyes. If he had he would 
have seen that remorse was at the moment antipodally re- 
moved from the state in which Miss Barbara was moving. 
Her eyes shone with pure joy. 

She ran upstairs lightly, and the First Butler com- 
mented inwardly on the depravity of the rich which runs 
with the feet of goats, fearing no judgment. Indeed, she 
feared none. Judgment Day had been postponed a week 
for Barbara. She had been telling herself that, aU the 
way home from Briarcliff. The crushing weight was off 
her heart. Cleve Winsor was going to stay another 
week. The awful nightmare that she must haste, haste, 
haste to decide, was lifted. She could consider the whole 
situation leisurely now, look over her three suitors once 
more, singly and together, quality by quality, fault by 
fault ; estimate chances, deliberate, find good counsel. 

She stripped off her damp clothes, singing, and stepped 
into her bath to the tune of “ Just a little love, a little 
ki-iss.” She decided that her grandmother was all wrong 
in saying that there was no such thing as peace. Bar- 
bara knew that she was experiencing the concentrated 
essence of peace. And she luxuriated in it all the more 


BARBARA PICKS A HUSBAND 


147 


because she was so sure now that she had no need of that 
extra week. She had decided at last. But the prospect 
of the extra week was bliss. One never could be too sure. 
Barbara, who had reckless moments, was cautious at heart. 
Her father and her two grandfathers had been lawyers. 

Dining below in solitary state, Mrs. Collingwood had 
heard Barbara run up the stairs ; but she checked the 
impulse to follow. Her fine features seemed more like a 
statue’s than ever. They were unmistakably sad, but 
there was something almost impersonally grand in their 
sadness. There was nothing depressing or gloomy about 
her. Seeing her, one had the feeling that she was some 
heroic knight, resting between ordeals. The metaphor 
had some truth behind it. 

She looked up as the First Butler returned from the 
front hall. 

Miss Barbara,” he said, quite without expression. 

‘‘ Did she say she was coming in to dinner ? ” 

“ She did not, madam. I think she went upstairs to 
change her clothes, madam.” 

‘‘ Please ask Katy to take up a tray.” 

“ Very good, madam.” 

That was all. Mrs. Collingwood touched the salad 
lightly and played for five minutes with the ice. Her 
heart was in her throat, it seemed, and threatened to 
break the narrow chamber with its beating. The First 
Butler decided that she lacked a feeling of responsibility, 
caring so little whether Miss Barbara came or went. 

Mrs. Collingwood took coffee, which was unusual, in or- 
der to have an excuse to remain at the table another two 
or three minutes to compose this absurd heart of hers for 
the ordeal that confronted her. She knew exactly what 
it was her duty to do and to say ; and she had plenty of 
courage. It happened that at the moment she felt utterly 
devoid of that strength which until recently had always 
been hers in abundance. Before she delivered the blow 


148 


BARBARA PICKS A HUSBAND 


she knew it was her duty to deliver, she wanted to be sure 
that she would have the strength to follow it up. 

She heard Barbara singing “ Take me back to Ole Vir- 
ginny,” as her hand touched the door-knob of Barbara’s 
room a half hour later. Barbara was evidently happy. 
The light-hearted humming made Mrs. Collingwood want 
to weep. She knocked and entered. Barbara was sitting 
in a pink kimono before an electric fan that stood on her 
dressing table, combing her hair, wet from a recent 
shampoo. A disordered dinner-tray clung perilously to 
the edge of the crowded top. Barbara had evidently en- 
joyed her meal. 

“ Hello, Mother,” she said unconcernedly, negotiating a 
stubborn kink without turning. 

“ What under the sun made you go to your grand- 
mother’s ? ” asked Mrs. Collingwood. “ I’m glad you did. 
It was absurd that you didn’t go back there long ago. But 
I haven’t been able to puzzle out why you went there last 
night.” 

“ I had an awfully good time,” Barbara remarked 
casually. 

Mrs. Collingwood, who had a restless way of always 
having to do something or other with her hands, bent down 
to pick up a bedraggled pile of clothes and hang them 
up. “ Barbara ! ” she exclaimed. “ They’re sopping.” 

Barbara did not answer. 

‘‘ My dear ! ” cried her mother, “ what has happened ^ ” 

Barbara proceeded with her coiffure as calmly as though 
her mother had been an inquisitive French maid. After a 
minute she spoke. “ We had an accident with the car and 
were thrown into a lake up near Briarcliff. That’s all.” 

My dear!” 

“ I didn’t do it on purpose,” her daughter responded 
icily. 

Was Tom hurt.? ” 

It wasn’t Tom.” 


BARBARA PICKS A HUSBAND 


149 


“ Was it—?” 

“ It was.” 

‘‘ How did he find out where you were? ” 

“ You told him yourself. You told a telephone ope- 
rator, thinking it was Tom who wanted Grandma’s street 
number.” All this Barbara narrated very quietly as she 
combed her hair. The electric fan hummed on. Between 
them, fan and Lorelei made a maddening picture of im- 
perturbability. 

Mrs. Collingwood bit her lips. Cleve Winsor seemed 
compact of lies and deceits. “ Did he tell you the trick 
he had played? ” she asked. 

“ Of course. He was perfectly frank about it.” 

Mrs. Collingwood lifted her head sharply, like a noble 
horse straining at the snaffle. How can you endure 
him ? ” 

For the first time since her mother had entered the 
room, Barbara ceased her regular combing for a moment 
and turned slightly. ‘‘ If you insist on treating him like 
a stage villain, he’ll go and act like one. You ought to 
know that by this time, mother.” 

Mrs. Collingwood tra-la-la-ed softly to keep herself 
from saying something sharp in return, picked up the wet 
clothes and carried them into the bathroom. She re- 
turned immediately, still humming. 

This time Barbara was the one who was irritated. 

Honestly, Mother,” she cried, you are the most try- 
ing person — ” 

Mrs. Collingwood stopped in her tracks. For a mo- 
ment the electric fan seemed to roar, so silent the rest of 
creation seemed. ‘‘ Do you know what happened here 
last night? ” asked Mrs. Collingwood. 

“ Yes.” Barbara looked straight into her mother’s 
eyes as she said it. 

‘‘ Everything? ” 

“ I suppose so. It was bad enough.” 


150 


BARBARA PICKS A HUSBAND 


« He told you? ” 

“ Yes.” 

“ How did he excuse himself ? ” 

“ He didn’t try to.” 

“ Wasn’t he utterly ashamed of himself? ” 

‘‘No, I don’t think he was. It’s his bringing up. 
That’s all.” 

“ My dear ! ” cried Mrs. CoUingwood in her vehement 
way. “ He behaved like a perfect brute. I was ashamed, 
humiliated before the servants. Tom was wonderful.” 

“Tom?” Barbara spoke the word with an offhand, 
scornful inflection. “ Of course Tom — would be.” 

“ Mr. Winsor was in Tom’s car when Tom came down 
from the stoop,” Mrs. CoUingwood went on, “ and sprang 
at him as Tom was about to get in. Tom fell and the 
brute hit him before he could get up again.” 

Barbara rose suddenly to her feet. “ I don’t believe 
it ! ” she cried. The afternoon sunlight shone through her 
loose hair and set a crown of Are about her face. 

“ I am telling you exactly what happened.” 

“ Cleve didn’t hit Tom when he was down.” 

“ Well, there’s no use talking about the dreadful mat- 
ter, Barbara. I want to forget it.” 

“ No. Go on. I can stand it if you can.” 

“ Well, Tom got on his feet somehow and struck Mr. 
Winsor so hard that his nose began to bleed. Then Mr. 
Winsor must have lost his temper, for he kicked Tom in 
the shin and tripped him and was hitting him where he 
lay — ” 

Barbara’s face was white and strained. “ I don’t be- 
lieve it. I don’t believe a word of it. It was a fair 
fight. Cleve told me all about it. And he was square and 
generous to Tom, too. He didn’t tell any lies about him 
behind his back. If this is Tom’s version of the story, all 
I can say is — that I think it’s — contemptible — abso- 
lutely contemptible.” There were red blotches on her 


BARBARA PICKS A HUSBAND 


151 


cheeks now; and as she ceased speaking she drew in her 
lips so that only a straight, hard little line was visible. 

Mrs. Collingwood turned to the mantel and began ener- 
getically to clear away certain ribbons and combs and 
little boxes and big boxes and magazines and hair-nets 
and slippers and rings and curls and perfume bottles and 
powder- jars, which did not belong among the forty odd 
photographs of friends and near-friends which, in frames 
or without, were supposed to adorn the shelf over the orna- 
mental fireplace. After a minute her rebellious heart 
granted her permission to speak. 

“ That was not Tom’s version,” she said quietly. 
‘‘ Tom said nothing to me afterwards except that he was 
not badly hurt and could drive home all right. It was 
what I saw myself.” 

“ You.? ” 

‘‘ Yes. I stopped the fight.” 

Heavens ! If anybody had seen you ! Really, 
Mother, you ought to move to the Bowery, where a fight 
isn’t a real fight unless a woman’s in it.” 

Mrs. Collingwood laughed suddenly at the glorious ab- 
surdity of the logic which condoned the vulgarity of 
beginning a fight and was horrified at the vulgarity of 
ending it. ‘‘ It may have been unseemly from your point 
of view,” she answered. But the brute was murdering 
Tom and I interfered as I would interfere in any case 
where a mad dog was running amuck.” 

Barbara sniffed. ‘‘ Your language is perfectly ab- 
surd.” 

‘‘ Will you believe now that Mr. Winsor behaved — 
as I told you.? ” 

“ Why should I.? ” 

‘‘ I have told you, Barbara, that I saw everything.” 

Barbara shrugged her shoulders ever so slightly and 
sank into her chair again. But she did not start at once 
combing her hair. She turned off the electric fan with an 


162 


BARBARA PICKS A HUSBAND 


abrupt movement and then sat motionless, coolly regard- 
ing her mother from head to toe. 

“ You don’t understand, Mother,” she said at last. 
“ You never did. You’re prejudiced. You’ve disap- 
proved of me ever since I came back from boarding-school. 
I sometimes think you hate me.” 

“ My dear ! ” The cry seemed to burst as from a 
breaking heart, so warm and piteous and unhappy it was. 

Barbara felt its tenderness ; against her will, she was 
forced to admit its undeniable sincerity. But her voice 
was even harder than before when she spoke. I know 
I’ve made you miserable. But it’s not my fault. You 
just don’t understand. You’re hopelessly old-fashioned. 
You’ve talked and argued and obstructed and you’ve 
never understood that girls are different to-day than 
they were when you were young. They demand a bigger 
freedom and if it isn’t given them, they’ll take it of them- 
selves, because they’re readv for it and know how to use 
it.” 

‘‘ I’ve given you a good deal of freedom, Barbara — 
often, more than my conscience told me was right. I’ve 
tried not to interfere. But when it comes to your marry- 
ing a man like Cleve Winsor, I just can’t keep still. I 
may be foolish and out of date, but I’m your mother, dear, 
and this man, I know, is a brute — ” 

He isn’t ! ” Barbara was on her feet once more. 

I told you what I saw.” 

Barbara did not answer at once. The color crept 
slowly over her white cheeks and the fire of a hard fighter 
seemed suddenly to flare up in both her eyes. “ You’re 
prejudiced,” she said slowly. You want me to marry 
Tom and you don’t want me to marry Cleve. I think 
you are deliberately telling me things — that you think 
— will throw a bad light — on Cleve Winsor.” 

Again Mrs. Collingwood turned for refuge to music and 


BARBARA PICKS A HUSBAND 


153 


the chaotic mantelpiece. A crystal powder jar crashed 
on the rose-colored tiles. 

“ I can tell you this much,” cried Barbara. ‘‘ Your op- 
position is having exactly the opposite effect from that 
you intend it to have. I don’t think I would ever have 
thought twice of marrying Cleve Winsor if it hadn’t 
been for you. Now I probably shall marry him, and if 
things go wrong, you will have the satisfaction of knowing 
whom to blame.” 

I’m not going to let you marry him,” said Mrs. Col- 
lingwood quietly. 

“ This isn’t Eighteen-fifty, Mother.” 

No. But that’s no reason why I should let you put 
your head in a noose.” 

‘‘ You’re absolutely absurd. I wish you’d learn not to 
use such extravagant language. It maikes you look fool- 
ish.” 

Mrs. CoUingwood possessed patience and that quality 
which St. Paul calls “ longsuffering,” to a degree found 
more often in the pages of the Golden Legend than in the 
unromantic humdrum of modem life. 

She sat down on the edge of Barbara’s bed. “ I know 
I am a disagreeable nuisance,” she remarked after a long 
silence. “ But I’ve got to tell you things, Barbara, as I 
see them, or as they come to me from outside. I am not 
trying to deceive you; and I don’t think I am using ex- 
travagant words. I’ve got to call a spade a spade. I’d 
feel absurd trying to pretend it was a sugar-tongs, Bar- 
bara, when I knew it wasn’t. I’ve heard some things about 
Mr. Winsor that I think you ought to know.” 

‘‘ I don’t want to hear them. I won’t listen to gossip 
about my friends.” 

This isn’t mere gossip.” 

I don’t want to hear another thing.” 

“ You’ve got to. There’s too much at stake.” 


154 


BARBARA PICKS A HUSBAND 


Again, Barbara sank into her chair, opening and shut- 
ting her fists, stretching her fingers, then rubbing them 
along the palms, then stretching them again like restless 
tentacles. Her body was motionless, her face almost 
without expression, but her fingers continued to draw in 
and stretch out, draw in and stretch out, horribly like 
lifeless automatons. 

‘‘ Mrs. Jardine telephoned this morning,” Mrs. Colling- 
wood began. 

“ She’s a cat.” 

No, she isn’t, Barbara. She spoke very sweetly of 
you, but she said — ” 

“ Well? ” 

‘‘ She said that the woman who was with her when she 
saw you and Mr. Winsor at the tea-room yesterday hap- 
pened to know Mr. Winsor very well.” 

“ She didn’t bow.” 

‘‘ She had her back turned. Besides, she says that she 
had ceased bowing to Cleve Winsor.” 

“ Oh, heavens ! I know the kind. Puritanical prigs ! ” 

“ It happens,” Mrs. Collingwood continued with no 
change of inflection, “that Mrs. Jardine’s friend was 
Zinotchka Hallam, the Russian sculptor, who married that 
young Princeton professor last year.” 

“ I’ve met her. She was at the dance after the Triangle 
Club play. Stunning. Wonderful jewels.” Barbara 
was interested in spite of herself, and for a moment the 
fingers were still. “ How did she happen to know 
Cleve? ” 

“ They met in New York during the time he was at 
Yale.” Mrs. Collingwood paused. 

“Was it an affair?” asked Barbara with unflinching 
directness. 

“ All Mrs. Jardine told me was that Mrs. Hallam hoped 
that I knew what I was doing in allowing my daughter to 
marry Cleve Winsor. So I called up Mrs. Hallam.” 


BARBARA PICKS A HUSBAND 


155 


‘‘ You have been busy,” remarked Barbara with an 
ironical smile. 

“ Mrs. Hallam was at the Marlborough and begged me 
to come to see her. She didn’t want to talk about such 
matters over the telephone, she said. I saw her after 
church this morning.” 

Again Barbara’s fingers began to stretch out and draw 
in, with serpentine undulations. 

She was very frank and direct,” Mrs. Collingwood 
went on. “ She had had an experience of some sort with 
Mr. Winsor, but she did not seem to regret that particu- 
larly. She mentioned it rather casually, admitting that 
it was mostly her fault. She was the older and more ex- 
perienced, she said, and should have known better. And 
she said that boys, of course, did go through such expe- 
riences and often made good husbands afterwards. I 
should like to have argued that out with her ! ” 

‘‘ Did you.^ ” asked Barbara coldly. 

« No.” 

‘‘That was wise, wasn’t it.^ ” The tone of her voice 
was as maddening as Barbara could make it. 

Mrs. Collingwood did not flinch, but for a few seconds 
her voice was husky. Then it cleared and again rang 
out, unfaltering and vigorous. “ She said that sin did 
not worry the Russian mind the way it seemed to worry the 
Anglo-Saxon,” Mrs. Collingwood continued. “ And for 
that reason the Russian mind seemed to her purer, more 
spiritual. That seemed to me perfectly absurd. I told 
her so.” 

“What did she say.?” 

“ She laughed, and turned the conversation to Cleve 
Winsor again. I noticed that though she pretended to be 
casual about it all, she was stirred underneath. I had a 
feeling that raking up the matter after so many years hurt 
her more than she pretended. She had never spoken to 
any one about it, she said, except, of course, Mr. Hallam, 


156 


BARBARA PICKS A HUSBAND 


who knew every incident of her dreadful past, she said. 
She laughed as she said it. She admitted that she had 
been head over heels in love with Cleve Winsor. He was 
wonderfully attractive at eighteen, she said.” 

“ Cradle-snatcher ! ” murmured Barbara. 

“ She called herself that, I remember. She said she 
never realized until afterwards that boys of eighteen in 
America are so much younger than boys of eighteen in 
Russia. They should be protected by law, she said, like 
girls under sixteen. She said it with that fascinating 
low laugh of hers, but there was a curious strain of bitter- 
ness running through it. She tried to help him to grow 
up, she said, to educate his feelings and perceptions, but it 
was hopeless.” 

Barbara tilted her left shoulder a little and sniffed au- 
dibly. “ It would be — for a middle-aged old maid.” 

‘‘ She can’t be more than twenty-eight or thirty now, 
and all that must have been six years ago.” 

Barbara rose and walked to the window and for a 
moment stared out at the bare backs of houses on Fifty- 
sixth Street. 

She probably talked Art,” she said contemptuously. 

“ Only once, she said.” 

Heavens, Mother ! Imagine the bore she must have 
been! Think of trying to talk Art to an American man. 
She must have been crazy.” 

She said that herself. She really loved him, she said, 
and he had many attractive qualities.” 

Barbara, standing beside her dressing table, with the 
afternoon sun bright on her hair, turned the electric fan 
on and then off again after a brief buzz, then on again and 
again off. 

“ I suppose he threw her over,” she said at last, coldly. 
“ She must have been a hopeless highbrow. And it’s her 


BARBARA PICKS A HUSBAND 


157 


wounded vanity that makes her go yapping about, blacken- 
ing his character now. What business is it of hers if I 
want to marry the man who threw her over.^ 

‘‘ My dear ! ” cried Mrs. Collingwood. 

“ She’s just madly jealous. That’s all.” 

You don’t understand, Barbara dear.” 

‘‘Don’t I?” Barbara threw back her head with an 
abrupt movement. 

“ No, my dear, you don’t. It is very kind of Mrs. Hal- 
1am to want to warn me — and you. And I am sure you 
would realize it if you were not in an over-wrought state 
of mind.” 

“ I’m not overwrought. I wish you wouldn’t always 
make rash accusations. Mother.” 

“ Barbara, you’re perfectly foolish ! ” 

“ There you go ! ” 

“ My dear, you must listen to me.” 

“What is the use, Mother.^ We never get any nearer 
to each other in our talkfests. Why not agree to dis- 
agree and be done with it.^^ ” 

“ But don’t you see, Barbara, that my conscience won’t 
let me take a neutral position? ” 

“ Your conscience is perfectly absurd. Anyway, I 
don’t think your conscience is involved. It’s just your 
prejudices which you sanctify by pretending that they are 
conscience.” 

“ You know that isn’t true.” 

Barbara passed her hand over her brow. “ Oh, where 
are we getting to ? Where did we stop ? ” 

“ We were talking of Mrs. Hallam.” 

“ Exactly. And I think you’re a perfect prude about 
the whole business. Every boy gets roped into some ad- 
venture like that some time or other. There are loads of 
women just like Mrs. Hallam, who just lie in wait for 
freshmen in college and dangle them on their bracelets 


158 


BARBARA PICKS A HUSBAND 


until the boys realize that they are being dangled, and 
break away. It doesn’t mean anything.” 

“ But, Barbara, Cleve Winsor did not break away. 
Mrs. Hallam broke it all off herself, because she discovered 
that all the time that Mr. Winsor was making love to her 
in New York, he was keeping one woman in New Haven 
and another somewhere else. She found out, shortly after, 
that he had a reputation in college of being unable to 
resist anything in skirts.” 

Barbara seemed slowly to stiffen where she stood beside 
the dressing-table. Only her fingers, now clasped over 
her chest, writhed for a moment like snakes intertwined, 
then they, too, became rigid. They seemed bony and 
blue and dead. Her face was the color of callous skin, 
her eyes were clear and cold as glass ; and her voice when 
she spoke at last was lifeless and brittle. 

‘‘ Perfectly absurd ! ” she exclaimed, but very faintly. 
She cleared her throat. “ He hates women. He always 
has — until he met me.” She did not seem conscious of 
anything unusually self-assured in that remark. 

“Did he tell you that himself, Barbara.?” Mrs. 
Collingwood’s voice was tender and full of pity. Barbara 
was suffering. There was no question of that. 

“ He did,” Barbara admitted. “ But I heard it from 
other people long before I met him. That’s what made 
him — interesting, even before I knew him. And I don’t 
believe that story about him. It’s foolish on the face of 
it. I wouldn’t believe it if Mrs. Hallam swore on the 
Bible that it was true. Not with all the evidence in the 
world.” 

“ Barbara, you’re bluffing,” said Mrs. Collingwood with 
cruel directness. “ You know it’s true.” 

Barbara dropped into her chair with a long-drawn wail 
and, twisting her body about, leaned her arms on the back, 
sobbing piteously. Mrs. Collingwood did not dare go 
near her. She would have given much for the privilege 


BARBARA PICKS A HUSBAND 


159 


of taking Barbara in her arms and comforting her, but 
she knew that any such attempt on her part would only 
make matters worse. The tears rose to her own eyes and 
poured down her cheeks. She sat motionless and grad- 
ually the tears subsided. She picked a handkerchief of 
Barbara’s off the floor and daubed her eyes. 

Barbara recovered her composure more slowly. At 
last, drawing a deep breath and letting it go again in an 
unhappy moan, she turned toward her mother. “ Give 
me my handkerchief, please.? It’s on the bed, I think.” 

Mrs. Collingwood handed her the diminutive wet rag. 
Barbara sniffled, drying her tears. “ I was so happy,” 
she said at last, choking a little. I don’t see why you 
had to come and make me miserable.” 

‘‘ I don’t want to make you miserable, Barbara dear. 
I wish you could realize that. I want to save you from 
yourself. Don’t you see? ” 

I know you mean well. Mother, but — it’s my own 
funeral. I’m willing to bear the consequences of what- 
ever I do. I’m not going to lie down and whine if things 
should go wrong. So I don’t see what right you have to 
butt in and try to manage my affairs. Honest, I don’t.” 

“ I’m older than you, Barbara. Don’t you understand? 
I don’t think you can see consequences quite as clearly as 
I can.” 

Barbara uttered a slightly scornful exclamation, inti- 
mating that she thought her mother rather conceited. 

“ When I was your age,” Mrs. Collingwood continued, 

I probably thought as I think you do, that I could have 
reformed any man who loved me. But I know now that 
that was a sentimental notion.” 

This generation is different ft’om yours. Mother. 
That is the thing you never seem to be able to understand. 
Men realize nowadays that they’ve got to have more re- 
spect for women than they did, more — ” 

Mrs. Collingwood made an abrupt gesture. My dear 


160 


BARBARA PICKS A HUSBAND 


Barbara,” she cried. ‘‘ You haven’t the remotest notion 
of men or marriage. You’re talking the way a bachelor 
talks about the bringing up of babies, full of wonderful 
theories and much more dangerous than a person who has 
never thought at all. You think you are very sophisti- 
cated and that you know more about life than I do; but 
actually you are just as sentimental as you can be.” 

Barbara shrugged her shoulders once more and smiled 
a slant smile of ironical superiority. Then, without an- 
other word, she turned to her dressing table, snapped on 
the electric fan and resumed the slow combing of her hair. 
The fan and the sun together made the strands shimmer 
like thin-flowing threads of gold. 

Mrs. Collingwood rose abruptly from the bed and 
walked toward the door of her own room ; there she turned. 
‘‘ What are you going to do about Mr. Winsor, Bar- 
bara.^ ” she asked. 

Thrice Barbara drew her comb through her dancing 
hair. “ Nothing at present. Mother,” she answered 
sweetly. 

“ I just wanted to know what your intentions were. 
Because I am going to give orders that if Mr. Winsor 
comes to this house he is not to be admitted.” 

Barbara jumped to her feet so quickly that she upset her 
chair. “ Mother ! ” she cried. 

“ You told me he had to go back to-morrow. If I can 
do anything to keep you from seeing him before he goes, I 
intend to do it.” 

‘‘ You are old-fashioned. It’s too bad we haven’t got 
a dungeon in the house. But you’ll have to do some 
guarding if you’re going to keep us apart. For he’s not 
going home to-morrow at all. He told me this morning 
that he’d decided to stay another week. So there! Now 
see what you can do.” 

Barbara’s face was crimson and her eyes flashed. She 
was conscious that victory rested with her ; and with mer- 


BARBARA PICKS A HUSBAND 


161 


ciless anger watched her mother bite her trembling lips, 
and close her eyes slowly and lay her hand on her mouth, 
and leave the room. She stood rigid even after her mother 
had gone. 

And then, like the tinkle that brings down the curtain, 
the telephone bell rang. But there was still a minute of 
drama before the curtain dropped on the Act. 

Mrs. Collingwood and Barbara each possessed an ex- 
tension telephone and they reached their respective instru- 
ments at the identical moment. 

Hello ! ” both called sweetly. 

‘‘ Is this 40402 Plaza ? ” asked a familiar voice. 

‘‘ Hello ! ” cried Barbara eagerly. 

“ Whom do you wish to speak to ? ” asked Mrs. Colling- 
wood. 

“ Please get off the wire. Mother,” cried Barbara. 
“ It’s for me.” 

Is Miss Collingwood there.? ” 

‘‘ This is Miss Collingwood.” 

‘‘ Who is speaking, please.? ” This, a bit sternly, from 
Mrs. Collingwood. 

‘‘ Mother, won’t you please get off the wire .? Hello, 
Cleve ! ” 

“ Hello, kiddo. Are you trying to josh me.? You did 
sound just like your mother, though. You scared me for 
a second.” 

‘‘ This is Mrs. Collingwood, Mr. Winsor.” 

“ Mother, get off this wire. You have no right — ” 

“ What’s that ? ” asked a perplexed voice in the dis- 
tance. “ Isn’t this Barbara .? ” 

“ Of course it’s me. But Mother’s butting in on the 
wire.” 

“ Barbara, I do not want Mr. Winsor to call you up any 
more, and he might as well know it.” 

I’m not going to poison her, Mrs. Collingwood,” said 
the Voice somewhat plaintively. 


162 


BARBARA PICKS A HUSBAND 


I can’t allow my daughter to have anything more to 
do with you.” 

‘‘ Mother, you’re perfectly outrageous. Cleve ! Hello, 
Cleve ! ” 

« Hello!” 

“ Are you still at Briarcliff ” 

« No. New York.” 

“ Mr. Winsor, if you wish me to retain the slightest 
respect for you as a gentleman — ” 

“ Oh, Mother. Cut the melodrama ! ” 

« I’ve got something important to tell Barbara, Mrs. 
Collingwood.” 

“ Oh, Mother, do be decent and get off the wire I ” 

“ She needn’t get off the wire, Barbara. She can listen 
if she wants to. May I talk for half a minute, Mrs. Col- 
lingwood ” 

Mrs. Collingwood held the receiver an instant half way 
between her ear and the hook. Then she abruptly hung 
it up. From the adjoining room she heard Barbara’s 
voice. Go on, Cleve. Mother’s off.” 

‘‘ I’ve had a telegram,” said the Voice. “ Father says 
come home. That means I’ve got to take the night train 
for Chicago.” 

Barbara gave a gasp. I don’t suppose — I’ll — see 
you before you go. Will I.^ ” 

You certainly will,” he cried emphatically. “ That’s 
what I telephoned for. I’ve got to see you. I won’t go 
home till I do see you.” 

‘‘ When does the train go ? ” 

“ I thought I’d take the eight o’clock on the New York 
Central.” 

“ I see.” Barbara was thinking. 

“ Barbara ” 

“ Yes.? ” 

‘‘ You will let me see you before I go.? ” 


BARBARA PICKS A HUSBAND 163 

“ Why, of course. I tell you what. Come to supper. 
Six-thirty.” 

“ Barbara ! ” Mrs. Collingwood was at her side. I 
tell you I will not have that man in my house again \ ” 

‘‘ Six-thirty ! ” Barbara repeated into the transmitter. 

Good-by.” She hung up the receiver and turned to her 
mother. 

“ I tell you, Barbara,” cried Mrs. Collingwood. “ As 
long as I have anything to say in this house that man is 
not going to cross the threshold.” 

“ Just as you say. Mother,” said Barbara, and took up 
her comb again. 

She dropped it the instant Mrs. Collingw’ood had closed 
the door behind her, and dropped her self-assurance with 
it. Not a week, but — she looked at the clock on the 
overcrowded mantel — three hours and a half was all the 
time that was left her to make the Awful Decision. It 
seemed to her that she was slowly coagulating where she 
sat. Panic was upon her and she was too frightened to 
move. She listened to the clock ticking out like thun- 
der the irrecoverable seconds. Fascinated, she heard the 
seconds go. Sixty of them made a minute, she remembered, 
and sixty minutes made an hour. Three and a half hours ! 
With everything, past, present and future, to weigh and 
consider, three hearts to search beside her own, three 
possible careers to estimate, with life and death in the 
balance. 

A spirit of frantic haste possessed her. She must do 
something. She must get advice somehow, somewhere. 
Why had Tom given no sign of himself.^ Perhaps he had 
been badly hurt, after all. He might be able to advise her. 
He did have such a way of seeing things without regard to 
his own interests. She called his house on the telephone. 
He was not at home. Who ehe? Ruth, Delia, Chester.? 
Good heavens, no! Her grandmother.? The little old 


164 


BARBARA PICKS A HUSBAND 


lady had no telephone, she remembered. She bundled up 
her hair somehow, jumped into the first thing that came to 
hand in her wardrobe, and rushed outdoors, like a dying 
mouse, gasping for air. 


XVIII 


T om paraway, meanwhile, had been having certain 
troubles, mental and physical. The latter were all 
the result of Young Lochinvar’s vigorous way of showing 
gratitude for a supporting arm and a night’s lodging; the 
former had Barbara for their axis. 

He might, nevertheless, have appeared obediently at 
Merlin Road that Sunday morning had his physical 
troubles not intervened. But a cut in the back of his head, 
where it had struck the lowest step of Barbara Colling- 
wood’s front stoop, brought on first a violent headache 
and then a fever. He had stopped at a physician’s on 
the way home, and that gentleman’s solemn discourse on 
concussion of the brain and the hair’s breadth by which 
Tom had escaped it, did not serve to make the weight 
that seemed to be crushing down his cerebrum any the 
lighter. 

He walked home from the garage uncertainly. His 
father and mother were, fortunately, at the theater, so no 
explanations were demanded. He dragged himself up 
three flights and to bed, and for six hours hovered between 
wakefulness and sleep, in a ghastly chaos of little whirl- 
ing mill-wheels too absurdly tragically minute for a har- 
ried soul that wanted nothing on earth except a little 
larger mill-wheel, tyrannously withheld; and enormous, 
dreadful, crushing, mountainous mill-wheels, rolling in 
endless succession out of black night. He agonized, 
struggling for the medium-sized wheel he knew he must 
have or perish; and dropped into unconsciousness some- 
where between four and five in the morning, exhausted by 

165 


166 


BARBARA PICKS A HUSBAND 


his fruitless endeavors. When he awoke at ten his 
mother was sitting at his bedside, reading the ‘‘ Life of 
Bulwer Lytton.” 

He explained the bandages that swathed his head in 
fifty words, not feeling inclined toward elaborate exposi- 
tion. Mrs. Paraway chuckled softly over the picture he 
sketched; and Tom admitted that she was justified. The 
whole matter was at bottom grotesquely funny, though it 
occurred to him that the humor of it had, up to that 
moment, been obscured to his vision by other consider- 
ations, notably the condition of his head. He tried to get 
up, and sank back on the pillow, feeling giddy. 

Breakfast, discriminatingly ordered for the occasion by 
Mrs. Paraway, brought a return of strength. Mr. Para- 
way came in its wake with the Sunday papers and sat 
down to hear the wherefore of the bandages. Tom gave 
it again briefly, drifting, apparently quite casually, into a 
related subject. 

“ I haven’t had a chance to see either of you alone,” he 
remarked, “ since Mother telephoned Mrs. Jardine and evi- 
dently one or two other ladies, telling them that Barbara 
was engaged to Cleve Winsor.” 

Mrs. Paraway twisted her mouth into a half-humorous 
wry smile ; but Mr. Paraway laid down the illustrated sup- 
plement at which he was glancing, and frowned, puzzled. 
Then he looked at his wife, a little anxious. 

‘‘ Mother.? ” he queried. 

“ There was a misunderstanding, of course,” Tom went 
on. “ I told you that Winsor had said he was engaged. 
I told you also that I suspected he was lying. He was 
lying. Barbara is not engaged to him. I think she’s try- 
ing to make up her mind whether or not to take him. I 
think she’s having a good deal of a tussle. Starting that 
rumor, of course, didn’t simplify things for her or Mrs. 
Collingwood. To be perfectly frank. Mother, it seemed 
to me the devil of a thing to do.” 


BARBARA PICKS A HUSBAND 


167 


Mrs. Faraway rose, shrugging her shoulders, still with 
that curious, twisted smile upon her lips. It had occurred 
to Mr. Faraway years ago that his wife would make a ter- 
rible witness to cross-examine. He recalled that thought 
now, nodding in affirmation, as he gazed somewhat sol- 
emnly at the open doorway, through which she had gone. 

“ I’m sorry, Tom,” he said at last. ‘‘ We all make 
mistakes, and Mother has evidently made a fairly substan- 
tial one. She didn’t realize, of course, what she was doing, 
and there would be no advantage to any one in reproach- 
ing her. Apologies, either to you or Mrs. Collingwood, or 
the young lady, would only add embarrassment and pain 
to a situation which is unfortunate enough as it is.” 

“ I don’t want Mother to apologize,” said Tom, with 
brows wrinkled below the white avenue of bandage. 
“ And, I know, Mrs. Collingwood doesn’t want it. I 
merely wanted Mother to know that she was doing con- 
siderable complicating in a matter that seems to those in- 
volved quite complex enough. I understand, of course, 
what Mother was trying to do. She was hoping, evi- 
dently, that the announcement of the engagement would 
make Winsor feel committed and would possibly excite 
Barbara to the point of accepting him at once. That 
would then eliminate the danger of my marrying Barbara. 
It happens that Winsor isn’t the kind that would consider 
himself committed even by an oath on the Bible, and Bar- 
bara is level-headed, and I expect to marry Barbara any- 
way, so the nice little plot is a failure. But it gave a few 
people an ugly hour or two. Mrs. Collingwood knew, of 
course, why Mother was so anxious to have Barbara marry 
Winsor. Can you imagine her feelings ? ” 

Mr. Faraway did not answer at once. He was sitting 
with hands folded between his kneees, regarding a distant 
spot on the floor. 

“ You are a persistent young man, Tom,” he remarked 
at last, leaning back as though his curiosity concerning 


168 


BARBARA PICKS A HUSBAND 


the floor had been satisfied. “ I should be sorry to lose 
you from the office.” 

“ I can’t meet the conditions any more to-day than I 
could yesterday. Of course, I have cause to be a good 
deal sorrier than you. I can get another job, but, need- 
less to say, I can’t get the education or the prospects in 
any other office that I had in yours. The munitions case 
opens to-morrow, I suppose? ” 

Mr. Paraway rose to his feet. “ No,” he said abruptly. 

“ How’s that? ” 

“ I asked for a postponement.” 

“ You have your reasons, of course.” 

“ The J udge thought they were adequate, though I did 
not give him the one actual reason that underlay my re- 
quest.” There was a warmth and tenderness in his voice 
that told all that the words withheld. 

“ Thanks, Dad,” said Tom softly. “ You make me 
feel like a mule, to be stubborn when you are so generous. 
You’re hoping, I suppose, that I may change my mind 
about wanting to marry Barbara or that I may fail to 
— persuade her to marry me ? I’m not going to change 
my mind. It’s been made up too many years. And I have 
a strong hunch that in the end I shall convince Barbara 
that she wants to marry me.” 

Mr. Paraway stood at the bedside, looking imperiously 
tall and powerful. ‘‘ I should consider your success the 
greatest tragedy that could come to you, my boy,” he 
said in firm, even tones. They shook hands; and Mr. 
Paraway left the room. 

Tom frowned and for some time lay motionless, staring 
at the ceiling. His father had made a similar remark the 
day before, and it had not moved him, but now the words 
met a nascent dread in his own heart and rang in his ears 
ominously. His love for Barbara did not falter, but for 
the first time he wondered whether they would be really 
happy together. For her tolerance of Cleve Winsor stuck 


BARBARA PICKS A HUSBAND 


169 


in his throat. The man seemed to him all that was cheap 
and vulgar and unstable; yet Barbara liked him, was, in 
fact, infatuated wdth him, which might mean either more 
or less than liking. Barbara enjoyed other things that 
were cheap — cheap music, cheap plays, cheap restau^ 
rants, cheap styles, cheap art, cheap literature. 

How much of that was mere convention, the desire to 
be and do as other people, and how much was actual pref- 
erence ? 

He had known long ago how she could lie on occasion, 
so the discovery of Barbara’s most recent deception was not 
startling. Most girls lied, and nobody bothered much 
about it. He had always believed that Barbara’s decep- 
tions were merely a part of the social game; he had per- 
sisted in believing in the first-rate quality of the spirit 
beneath this second-rate exterior. She was in a difficult, 
perplexing position. Skillfully approached, she might, 
not improbably, fall into his arms from sheer weariness. 
And afterwards? If he was irritating to her now, when 
she saw him at most once a day, what would he be to her 
when they lived together in a six-room apartment ? 

Good God, what a prospect ! 

He rose, carrying his head gingerly as though there were 
a water-jar on it, dressed and walked to the garage on 
Ninety-fifth Street, for his car. Then he sped northwards 
into the hills of Westchester to think things over. 

He made no attempt to find out whether Barbara was 
still waiting for him in Merlin Road; which, under the 
circumstances, was just as well. 


XIX 


W HILE Tom Faraway and Cleve Winsor were con- 
tending thus, not without violence, for the favor 
of Barbara Collingwood, that lady’s third suitor was 
applying himself and his talents to dry goods. He did 
this not because he loved silks and selvages, but because 
his German mother, who controlled the business, had made 
it clear to him long ago that he would have to live on 
what the management of the firm decreed he was worth. 
The lure of a partnership on or even before his twenty- 
third birthday was dangled before his eyes to stimulate his 
lagging endeavors. He was a gay youth, a male counter- 
part to those gushing young ladies who could die dancing; 
but though he did dance the greater part of every night, 
he remembered the partnership. For without the part- 
nership there could be no marriage with Barbara, and 
without Barbara, or the dream of her, even dancing would 
lose its charm. 

The business was a practically independent branch of 
a famous Hamburg house, founded by Mrs. Howell’s great- 
grandfather. Mr. Howell had been first its brilliant 
office-boy and later its still brilliant, though not wholly 
successful head. He, too, had had a gay streak. When 
he died, therefore, from an excess of thirst, early in his 
forties, Mrs. Howell had felt impelled personally to steady 
the uneasy, staggering fortunes of the Firm. She called 
herself the silent partner, but her use of the term must 
have been based on a misconception. Literally she was 
silent enough. Scarcely once a month she rustled into the 
office in the Firm’s own importations and rustled out again, 
having said nothing more important than “ Good mom- 

170 


BARBARA PICKS A HUSBAND 


171 


ing.” But she controlled five-eighths of the stock, and the 
other partners could make no move before that fine spirited 
head, prematurely white, had nodded thoughtfully in 
assent. Once, long ago, before they quite knew Clementine 
Howell, gehorene Kustrin, the partners had attempted to 
carry through a rather risky speculation without consult- 
ing her ; and the consequent earthquake had shaken houses 
in two continents. 

Mrs. Howell knew all about Barbara, for Chester was 
the dear sort who must confide or perish. She had fol- 
lowed his courtship, step by step, since its beginning, a 
year or more back, rejoicing in it, because she liked Bar- 
bara and encouraging it with all the tact she possessed, 
because she saw in its happy culmination the only visible 
hope for a successful career for Chester. Barbara, she 
knew, was masterful and exacting, and an exacting wife 
was what Chester needed. Barbara would demand suc- 
cess and would take care that indolence were made a 
less attractive state for him than industry. 

The very qualities which turned Mrs. Faraway against 
Barbara, drew Mrs. Howell toward her. 

Chester had the German sense of loyalty and devotion, 
now centered in his mother. This kept him reasonably 
straight for the present, but Mrs. Howell was uncom- 
fortably conscious of the fact that she would probably 
not live forever. Her obvious duty, therefore, seemed to 
her to find a sort of vice-president to take over the reins 
of government on her demise, or before. A more ideal 
method might have been to inculcate a set of principles 
in Chester’s mind that would enable him to govern himself ; 
but Chester’s mind, like his father’s, was not receptive 
to principles. So Barbara appeared to Mrs. Howell as a 
fresh instance of the attention of God to the minutest de- 
tails of human affairs ; and she determined forthwith to 
capture her as Chester’s governor-general for life. 

She was a frank, open-hearted woman, and made no 


m 


BARBARA PICKS A HUSBAND 


attempt to conceal her determination or even her motives 
for it from Barbara herself. She already thought of 
Barbara as her daughter-in-law and loved her as such, 
though she disliked and disapproved of much that Bar- 
bara said and did. Mrs. Howell was too wise and too 
finely conscious of the dignity demanded of a woman of 
her years and social position to pursue Barbara. But in 
one way or another she managed to keep herself and her 
affection active in Barbara’s consciousness, in subtle ways 
prospering Chester’s suit. 

It occurred to her more than once, paradoxically, that 
if it weren’t for Chester himself, Barbara might have been 
won long ago. But Chester had had a habit since child- 
hood of stumbling over his own feet. 

“ O du lieber Gott! ” said Mrs. Howell to herself with 
lifted brows and lifted hands and a hopeless laugh and a 
sigh. *'Ist das ein Jwngel 1st das ein lieber Schafs- 
kopf! ” 

Chester had done many foolish things in his time and 
Mrs. Howell had learned to be surprised at nothing, but 
even she had been moved to a sharp exclamation when 
Chester woke her out of a deep sleep at three or four in 
the morning, a month or so previous, to tell her in dis- 
may and almost in tears that for no other reason than his 
devotion to Barbara he had that night got himself engaged 
to both Delia Kern and Ruth Torrey. 

How the perfidious business ever came about Chester 
never exactly knew. There was a dinner-dance with wine 
with the dinner and wine with the dance, and Chester ad- 
mitted that he had had three cocktails at the club to uplift 
his drooping soul before the dinner ever commenced. For 
Barbara had that day returned from Minneapolis, and 
Chester, who had had the foresight to meet her train in 
Albany, instead of the Grand Central, which had a way of 
being overcrowded with suitors at the end of all of Bar- 
bara’s journeys, had proposed to her all the way down the 


BARBARA PICKS A HUSBAND 


173 


River. And her answer had had an awful ring of finality. 
His mother was dining out. There was no one else in 
whom he could confide. And as he dressed for the dinner- 
dance he experienced the first real suffering he had ever 
known. It appeared that he loved Barbara more than he 
himself had dreamed. He wanted to shoot himself, but 
wearily pulled on his party-clothes instead, knowing that 
Barbara was to be at the affair, and remembering some- 
thing romantic and sad about a last ride together which 
he had once read, and which might just as well be a last 
dance. 

The cocktails depressed instead of exhilarating him. 
The exhilaration came later, for Barbara was, after all, 
not at the party, and he bore his grief for refuge to that 
consoling widow whom his father had known in his time 
and whose name was Cliquot. 

It was Chester’s misfortune that, unlike Cleve Winsor, 
he was not a one-bottle man. His capacity, for one so 
young, was astounding. He showed none of the signs of 
intoxication, moreover; his bearing was perfect, his man- 
ners, if anything, too meticulous. He merely lost all 
sense of To-morrow. 

In a dusky gallery, gloomily exchanging monosyllables 
with Ruth, who was also depressed, he discovered his 
hand holding Ruth’s without knowing in the least how it 
had come to be doing that. Ruth was unresponsively 
acquiescent. Her hand felt frail and cosy and warm in 
his own. A wave of emotion swept through him. He 
whispered in her ear all the things he had cried to Bar- 
bara sotto voce in the Pullman that afternoon, and she 
listened dreamily, saying nothing except, “ Oh, Chester ! ” 
in a voice that signified rapture, he was sure. 

Some one came and bore her away to a fox-trot and a 
door closed in his mind. 

An hour later he was saying the same things in the same 
place to Delia. But Delia was not unresponsive. Delia 


174 


BARBARA PICKS A HUSBAND 


threw her arms about his neck and kissed him as beautiful 
women kiss strong, red-blooded men in pictures in the art- 
shops. Chester would have been capable of going through 
the same performance with every other girl present if the 
evening had been long enough, but the time was too short 
and besides, Delia began immediately to exercise the right 
of possession. Chester forgot about them both in the 
calm pleasure of a cigarette in the dressing room, forget- 
ting also that Delia expected him to take her home. Re- 
membrance came horribly at the end of fifteen minutes of 
snow-laden March air. 

If Chester had been a gay Don Juan, he might have 
laughed at himself and the young ladies and gone to his 
bed in peace. But he was no Don Juan at all. He had, 
for aU his absurd apparent irresponsibility, an active con- 
science, and it plagued the very sun out of his sky during 
the days and weeks that ensued. His mother had no 
advice to offer him in his Awful Dilemma. She tried to be 
serious about it, and burst into laughter ; she tried to laugh 
about it and found herself, before she knew it, giving him 
a lecture in German, which always meant that she was 
very indignant. 

He went about aimlessly for days, living at a friend’s 
club and neglecting business in order to avoid every place 
at which a telephone call from either pining young lady 
might catch him. He called on them both three days after 
the eventful evening, selecting an hour when he was alto- 
gether certain that they were both dancing at Sherry’s. 

Diplomatic relations having thus been resumed, he ven- 
tured to return to his own house and to business once 
more. He found altogether eleven telephone calls from 
Delia, three at his home, three at his club and five at the 
office ; and none at all from Ruth. His erratic conscience 
thereafter felt entirely at ease concerning the former and 
tragically disturbed about her rival. Because he did not 
care whether he hurt or not the feelings of a lady as hot 


BARBARA PICKS A HUSBAND 


176 


on the trail of her lover as Delia, he played with her, 
flirted with her over the telephone, dodged her invitations, 
evaded her reproaches, sent her candy on Wednesdays and 
violets Sunday mornings. 

But it was all different with Ruth. 

Her silence was the most effective defense she could 
have made. They met, but she made no reference to a cer- 
tain incident of that forever memorable party. But it 
seemed to him that she looked at him questioningly, puz- 
zled, waiting for something. He did not love her at aU; 
but he was very warm-hearted, and pity and remorse filled 
the place where love should have been. He sent Ruth 
candy and roses, with friendly little messages. And all the 
while hope dashed to earth had risen again in another di- 
rection, and he was sending candy likewise to Barbara Col- 
lingwood. But when he sent flowers to that lady he sent 
orchids. The month of March that year completely 
wrecked Chester Howell’s bank account. 

Chester found all this interesting, but rather wearing, 
for he more than suspected that the day of reckoning 
could not be indefinitely postponed. His mother heard 
him mutter “ My God ! ” in his sleep and surmised with- 
out difficulty what he was dreaming about. After a 
fortnight, in fact, of his three-cornered courtship, the 
last ray of humor had faded from the situation, as far as 
he was concerned. The affair took on a serious look that 
deepened day by day. Two lovely young ladies were 
waiting, hour after hour, for him to do the honorable 
thing and follow up a declaration of love with a proposal 
of marriage. And all the while, the girl he really wanted 
to marry was going her gay way not caring a hang 
whether he loved her or not. It was a maddening business. 
Then, suddenly, came the thunderbolt, clearing the air, for 
out of the West came Cleve Winsor. 

Chester had clear eyes and a brain somewhere behind 
them, and he had been in the Collingwood house no more 


176 


BARBARA PICKS A HUSBAND 


than fifteen minutes on the night of the disastrous dinner 
party chronicled in the first chapter of this story, before 
he was aware of its purpose. Barbara was parading her 
lap-dogs before her particular lion. The lion looked 
very self-confident. Chester decided before the dinner 
was beyond the soup that Ruth and Delia could get over 
their broken hearts as well as they might. He intended 
to marry Barbara. 

He told his mother of the crisis and that lady listened 
with a thoughtful face and eyes not altogether without 
mirth. The possibility that Chester might marry either 
Ruth or Delia had filled her with uneasiness. Neither 
would have the slightest hold on Chester after the first 
year, Delia would be wildly extravagant, and, moreover, 
her family, also German, was altogether impossible; Ruth 
would bore him into a drunkard’s grave. So, without ap- 
pearing to regard Chester’s obligations toward his two 
fiancees too lightly, Mrs. Howell encouraged him in his pur- 
suit of the elusive lady of his heart. They were taking 
counsel in the living room, one flight up. 

“ You love Barbara more than you do either Ruth or 
Delia, don’t you, Chester.? ” Mrs. Howell asked. 

“ Good God, yes,” he exclaimed, jumping up from the 
deep chair in which he was lolling and starting to pace up 
and down. “ I don’t care a hang for either of those two 
wretched creatures. They could be run over on the Ave- 
nue or step on the third rail or jump from the Wool- 
worth Tower, and I wouldn’t turn a hairl I could see 
their bleeding corpses at my feet, and not even be sorry. 
I could run over them myself and never think about them 
again, any more than if they were chickens or h-h-h-h-hop- 
toads ! ” The last word came explosively at the end of a 
long stutter. It did not lose emphasis thereby. His light 
brown eyes were flashing and his sandy hair wildly rum- 
pled. He was passionately in earnest. 


BARBARA PICKS A HUSBAND 177 

“ Du liehes Karnickel! said Mrs. Howell affection- 
ately. 

He relaxed at that and a whimsical smile replaced the 
air of high tragedy at mouth and eyes, a sudden, bliss- 
fully irresponsible smile that somehow made his indiffer- 
ence to the two ladies in question more believable than his 
tempestuous tirade had made it. 

“ When will you grow up, Chester.^ ’’ his mother asked, 
a little wistfully. “ In Germany cousins of yours five and 
six years younger than you have led their companies 
against the enemy and been wounded and died. I wonder 
sometimes whether you would be capable of such heroism? 
You are such a happy-go-lucky little donkey — ” 

My dear Mother,’^ cried Chester with eloquence, 
‘‘ physical bravery is the lowest and commonest form of 
courage. Any professor of ethics will tell you that. I 
may not be leading forlorn hopes in France and Russia, 
but if you can show me one of my dear German cousins 
who could have got himself engaged to two charming 
young ladies, while he was in love with the third, and then 
refrained from going home and shooting himself, keeping 
his good nature instead, and not even taking to drink, I 
will be ready to begin to eat humble pie. As it is, aside 
from the initial error in judgment, I feel rather proud of 
myself for my tactful handling of what, after all, you must 
admit, has been a delicate situation.” 

He spoke his little speech with suavity and gestures and 
always the hint of mirth in the back of his flat, straw- 
colored eyes. He seemed to his mother extraordinarily 
attractive, and she wondered how Barbara could resist his 
gay charm, even if his face did look as though somebody 
had sat on it while it was still at an impressionable age. 

Mrs. Howell laughed, of course. There was nothing 
else to do with this ridiculous youngster play-acting be- 
fore her. But in a moment she was serious again. 


178 


BARBARA PICKS A HUSBAND 


My dear boy,” she said, “ this is all very well, but if 
you want my advice we must stop joking and — ” 

‘‘ J oking ! ” he interrupted, flopping down into his chair 
again, suddenly glum. ‘‘ Who’s joking? I’m not. Good 
God, with two women pursuing me, neither of whom I 
want to marry, and a third, whom I really want, in danger 
of being carried off any minute by a thug from the Middle 
West, to speak of joking seems to me decidedly out of 
place. I never felt less like joking. I have been terribly 
depressed. You might as well know it now as later. I 
think that there is real danger that I am going into 
melancholia.” 

“ There is a greater danger,” answered his mother 
quietly, “ that I shall forget your age and give you the 
Medicine that Always Helps. Do you remember? ” 

Chester twisted himself about in the deep leather chair 
until his back was against one arm-rest and his long legs 
were dangling over the other. He did remember to what 
his mother was referring. The term was a euphuism in- 
vented by Mrs. Howell in the days, prolonged into Chester’s 
teens, when the slipper was used for purposes beside foot- 
wear. 

“ I think you are very trivial,” he remarked with dignity. 
“ My whole future is at stake and the future of your 
family for generations, and you insist on trivializing the 
discussion with jokes about my childhood.” 

Mrs. Howell rose from her chair beside the circular table 
with its softly shaded lamp, and stood, resting her left 
hand lightly on the table-top. Chester stared at her in- 
quiringly, and then, without a word, straightened his body 
in the chair and looked up with an expression of polite at- 
tention. Mrs. Howell regarded him thoughtfully, saying 
nothing. He bore her quiet look as long as he could, then 
drew himself to his feet and approached the table. 

“ Now suppose we get down to business, Chester? ” said 
Mrs. Howell with friendly firmness. 


BARBARA PICKS A HUSBAND 


179 


‘‘ I didn’t mean to be discourteous.” 

“ You want my help, don’t you? ” 

‘‘ You know I do,” he cried, humbly. I adore you. 
There isn’t another woman like you in the world.” 

‘‘ I want you to marry Barbara, Chester. She’s a fine 
girl at bottom, I believe, and will make a man of you. I 
suppose, since she is being pursued so vigorously by this 
rich young man from Minneapolis, that you would like to 
feel that you had something to offer her, also, when you 
ask her to marry you. I will see what the firm can do 
about giving you that partnership.” 

Mother ! ” he cried. 

You have done pretty well in business ; rather better, 
in fact, than I expected. You will do better when you are 
married.” 

He passed his hand through his hair. “ It’s wonder- 
ful,” he murmured. ‘‘ It would be like a happy dream, if 
only those two creatures weren’t there, those harpies — ” 

Mrs. Howell laughed. ‘‘ But, my dear boy,” she cried, 

you don’t know girls, if you think that you have fooled 
them these four weeks. Don’t you think it’s likely that 
since you let four weeks pass by without following up 
your first declarations, they may suspect that you did not 
mean them? You deserve all the agonies of conscience 
you are able to suffer, but I do think you can relieve your 
mind about those two young ladies now. They have 
probably forgotten all about your love-making.” 

He shifted uncomfortably from one foot to the other, 
looking miserable. ‘‘ That’s all right,” he said dubiously, 
‘‘ or it would be all right if I had kept my mouth shut since 
that awful party.” 

“ What have you been saying? ” 

‘‘ Oh, nothing much,” he mumbled unhappily. “ But 
I had to say something to save my face.” 

“Yes?” This rather sharply. 

Chester looked unhappy and bit his nails. Then he 


180 


BARBARA PICKS A HUSBAND 


turned abruptly, and, walking to the fireplace, clutched 
the mantel-shelf and began irritably to kick the andirons. 

“ I had to say something to save my face. I couldn’t 
drop the girls like hot potatoes and I couldn’t tell them 
that the only reason I made love to them was that I was 
so drunk that I didn’t know what I was doing. You know, 
you can’t tell a girl that. At least, I can’t.” 

“ What did you tell them ? ” 

He turned about, leaning his shoulder against the man- 
tel and supporting himself thereby, slouching in an un- 
happy posture. “ I didn’t say much. I just intimated.” 

«What.?” 

‘‘ Oh, that the reason I was silent was because I didn’t 
have a right to speak. Not until I had my partnership in 
the firm. I didn’t say it. I just hinted it. And, well, I 
suppose I pretended somewhat that it was hard for me not 
to speak, and so on. I had to do something. I couldn’t 
marry both of them, and I didn’t want to marry either. 
So I thought the best thing would be just to let things 
slide along. I might die, you know. People my age do, 
every day. Or the girls might be bubbling together and 
get run into and killed.” 

“ Chester ! ” 

‘‘ I didn’t wish it ! ” he cried savagely. “ I just thought 
possibly by one chance in ten thousand they might. And 
if they did, it would have been too bad to have had them 
know anything unnecessarily and so it just seemed wise — ” 

“ Wise ! ” ejaculated Mrs. Howell. I don’t think that 
word ought to be breathed in any connection with your 
handling of this miserable affair. You have behaved like 
a child. I am ashamed of you.” 

My dear Mother,” began Chester in his finest argu- 
mentative manner. 

“No oratory, if you please,” she suggested gently. 

“ I wasn’t going to orate. I just wanted to point out 
that there’s no use pretending I’m a blackguard, because 


BARBARA PICKS A HUSBAND 


181 


I’m not. If I were, I’d never have told you anything 
about the whole business. I’d have kissed the girls and 
made them cry, like Georgie Porgie, and you’d never have 
known anything about it. Instead of abusing me, I think 
you ought to be very grateful that you have a son who 
has such a sensitive conscience and tender heart that he 
is incapable of seeing trusting young girls suffer because 
of him.” 

He began to stride up and down. “ I mean this,” he 
went on. “ I do. I suppose you think I have been hav- 
ing an easy time. I have not. I have suffered very much. 
I have suffered more than I care to say. But I do not 
wear my heart on my sleeve for daws to peck at. When 
I suffer, I suffer in silence. And I have suffered very 
much. I lay awake for an hour last night, thinking about 
everything. I think you are very unkind. You don’t 
mean to be, but you are. I must say, after living with 
you for so many years, I expected a higher degree of un- 
derstanding from you than you have shown me in this 
crisis.” 

He slumped savagely into the leather chair again, sit- 
ting with sullen face averted. 

She had stood motionless beside the table, letting him 
rant to his heart’s content. Her placid, rather sad face 
had been stern with maternal determination, but now, as 
imperceptibly almost as night yields to dawn, the stern- 
ness gave way to a slow-spreading wistful light. She 
crossed the narrow intervening space between them with 
a faint rustle of imported silks, and bent over him where 
he sat. 

“ You dear old idiot,” she murmured. ‘‘ You dear old 
idiot. You are a good boy, and I am grateful for that. 
My brother was like you at your age. Onkel Anton. And 
he ended as a lieutenant-general on a battlefield in Flan- 
ders. I will not give up hope for you. Come. Give me 
a kiss.” 


182 


BARBARA PICKS A HUSBAND 


He leapt to his feet like the lover he was and took her in 
his arms and kissed her. She sighed comfortably in his 
embrace as though she were sixteen instead of forty-eight. 

This is all very well, my noble son,” she said at last. 
“ But we have not found out yet what we are going to do 
about your two fiancees.” 

« Lord!” 

“ When do you intend to speak to Barbara ? ” 

“To-morrow!” he cried eagerly. “To-morrow after- 
noon. It’s Sunday. She’ll be home.” 

There was a moment of silence. “ Before you speak to 
her,” said his mother at last, slowly, “ I want you to go 
to Ruth and Delia and tell them the truth.” 

“ Mother ! ” This with undisguised horror. 

“ My boy, you must not let a cloud rest either on your 
name or on your Barbara’s happiness. You must do this 
for me.” 

“ Oh, but I can’t. I haven’t got the courage. I sim- 
ply haven’t. I’ll faint. I’ll faint dead away before I 
begin. You can’t expect me to do anything as awful as 
that.” 

“ I think I shall have to let your partnership in the firm 
depend upon your doing the honorable thing as a man and 
a gentleman.” 

“ Oh, but my God ! — ” 

“ I am afraid, my boy, that that is my ultimatum.” 

He felt a cold sweat break out on his skin. “ It’s no 
use,” he murmured. “ I simply can’t do it. I’d rather — 
go without Barbara.” 

Mrs. Howell frowned. Her husband had shown himself 
a coward once or twice, and it was like a fresh stab in an 
old wound to see the same weakness crop up in his son, 
but she merely sighed faintly and said nothing. She could 
act as support to Chester’s judgment, but not as his spine. 

Late that evening it happened that Chester, consoling 
himself with a highball at the club, met an acquaintance of 


BARBARA PICKS A HUSBAND 


183 


Mrs. Jardine. I hear Barbara Collingwood^s engaged,” 
said this individual. 

Chester stared at him. “ The hell you say ! ” 

“ To a man from Minneapolis.” 

“ Sure.^ ” 

« Positive.” 

Under these circumstances there was, of course, nothing 
for a sane, law-abiding man to do. But Chester was not 
wholly sane. A perfectly unreasonable conviction took 
possession of him that the news was false and he de- 
termined then and there to go through the fires for 
Brunhilde. 


XX 


A t three-thirty the following afternoon, Chester 
Howell, gorgeous in silk hat and fawn-colored 
gloves and cane and cutaway, went forth from his mother’s 
house on West Eighty-sixth Street, upon his penitential 
journey. Almost at the identical moment Barbara was 
rushing frantically down her own stoop in search of coun- 
sel. It was still Sunday, April second. 

A flushed and none too neat-looking maid admitted 
Chester to the house in the West Seventies where Delia 
Kern abode. Delia was at home, in the dining-room, in 
fact, drinking her afternoon coffee. So were her father 
and her mother and numberless brothers and sisters of 
all ages. The Kerns were German like Mrs. Howell; but 
with a difference. Mr. Kern had started his American 
career as a butcher-boy and was now head of a chain of 
butcher-shops that stretched from Brooklyn to the Bronx, 
a fabulously rich person, for a butcher, and noisy in pro- 
portion. His wife had been a servant-girl (which was the 
family skeleton) but she had had the wit to acquire a 
veneer of something resembling refinement and to send 
her children to fashionable boarding-schools. Delia was 
the oldest. Before Society was quite aware what was 
happening, Delia, schoolmate of Barbara Collingwood, was 
in it. 

But Mrs. Kern had another ambition and she pursued it 
grimly. In the course of her husband’s rise she had been 
snubbed unmercifully in New York, at summer resorts, on 
steamers, abroad, everywhere, by those other Germans who 
did not take their glass of beer at the Schuetzenfest — 
patricians of Bremen and Hamburg and Frankfort who 

184 


BARBARA PICKS A HUSBAND 


185 


had transplanted their exquisite and ancient refinement to 
the New World with some pruning of the roots but no loss 
of fruit or leafage. 

Mrs. Howell’s family was so old that it could (and did) 
look with lifted brows at nine-tenths of the barons and 
counts of the Empire. They were free citizens of a sov- 
ereign city and you were led to surmise that they had 
had to be active through the seven hundred years of their 
recorded history to evade the patents of nobility which 
succeeding Emperors had endeavored to foist upon them. 
They had dawned upon Europe in the same century that 
contributed the Hohenzollerns, and prided themselves on 
the fact that they had remained merchants and left the 
paths of gaudy splendor to the rather less refined family 
that liked that sort of thing. 

The Kerns were decidedly different. They were good- 
natured, hearty folk from Baden, with sound appetites, 
coarse but kindly feelings and no traditions at all except 
the ingrained, rough integrity and family loyalty of their 
race. Wealth had made them fat, but had scarcely in- 
creased their actual happiness. Papa and Mama Kern 
had felt infinitely more content in shirt-sleeves and dress- 
ing-jacket on some garrulous porch in Tannersville than 
they ever did in the physical restraints that Magnolia 
and Bar Harbor imposed. They were in a sense martyrs 
to their children, rather pathetic martyrs. More and 
more often as the years went by, bringing their now ines- 
capable millions. Papa Kem would turn to Mama Kern 
in the privacy of their bedroom with that tender, wistful 
phrase, “ Weisst du noch, Alte? ” bringing back memories 
of things which even his coarse-grained being knew were 
incomparably more desirable than this palace of Midas. 
He took to champagne and she to diamonds; and both 
grew hard. The Devil took a fancy to their sons. 

The family, young and old, were chattering a terrible 
mixture of German and English as Chester, with quivering 


186 


BARBARA PICKS A HUSBAND 


knees, deposited his hat and coat on the rack and crossed 
the parlor to the dining-room. Mr. Kern was the first to 
greet him with the pleasant Griiss Gotti of his youth in 
the Black Forest, slapping him on the back and making no 
attempt to conceal the fact that he felt honored and 
delighted. Chester flushed, for he saw Delia bite her lip 
and look uncomfortable. Delia was ashamed of her fam- 
ily. She had nothing to say as they shook hands, which 
was unusual with Delia ; and Chester’s spirits reached their 
nadir. 

“ Sit down by me, Mr. Howell,” cried Mrs. Kern in her 
shrill voice. “We have fresh Butterkuchen, Take some. 
Here. And Apfeltorte, No! Not such a small piece. 
Papa, pass the heisse Milch, The young man is hungry. 
A young man must eat. Henriette, see that Mr. Howell 
eats.” 

No one responded to the name of Henriette, and Chester 
was conscious of an awkward silence. 

“ Mein Gotti ” cried Mrs. Kern suddenly. “ I always 
forget. Delia, see that Mr. Howell eats.” 

Chester drowned an incipient grin in his coffee-cup. 
He had once heard it rumored that the name of Delia 
had been one of the few acquisitions Miss Kern had made 
at the fashionable boarding school. He had always 
thought the tale a malicious falsehood. Henriette some- 
how sounded more fitting, but Delia was certainly more 
stylish. 

The family dispersed like morning mist at a signal from 
Mrs. Kern, fifteen minutes later, leaving Delia, (once 
Henriette), in sole possession of the parlor floor and of 
Chester. 

Delia moved restlessly about the room, straightening 
out a knick-knack here or a vase there, striking a note 
or two on the upright piano, smelling a rose, fingering a 
book. Delia had absorbed certain notions concerning 
taste from Barbara and Ruth and had converted the par- 


BARBARA PICKS A HUSBAND 


187 


lor from walnut and shrieking satins to mahogany and 
old rose silks, Oriental rugs and oil paintings. The paint- 
ings were better than the crayon family portraits they 
supplanted, but that was about all one could say about 
them, unless it were to mention that the frames were con- 
siderably worse, being gilt and four inches deep. 

‘‘ You’ve never seen the family in a bunch before, have 
you.f^” remarked Delia, striking, as it happened, the one 
note on the piano that buzzed. Chester had a sensitive 
ear and cringed at the harsh discordancy. 

No,” he answered. 

“ Papa is awfully good,” she went on. “ But, of 
course, he hasn’t been in real society. Nor Mama either. 
But they’d do anything for anybody in trouble. Papa is 
always giving away money, and he doesn’t give it just to 
get his name in the paper either. He likes to help people.” 

She said it, still standing by the keyboard, looking down 
and tapping at intervals the note that buzzed. She was 
evidently quite unconscious of the fact that it did buzz. 
Chester understood. Delia was ashamed of the manners 
of her father and mother, but at bottom she was loyal; 
and she was suffering. Soft-hearted idiot that he was, he 
felt like taking her in his arms, in mere pity. 

Silence fell on them both and gripped them. Delia 
tapped, at intervals, the note that buzzed, waiting; and 
Chester thought of the ordeal ahead of him. He had 
firmly expected that Delia would take possession of him 
in the brazen way she had shown at times, assuming so 
much, that heartless frankness would appear almost as a 
duty to be cheerfully exercised. Here she was, almost as 
shrinking a violet as Ruth. He had planned to confess 
his transgression lightly, making a merry jest of it; but 
merry jests, in the presence of that infernal, buzzing, 
middle C, were out of the question. He jumped to his feet 
suddenly and began pacing up and down the room. 

“ What’s the matter, Chester? ” she asked. There was 


188 


BARBARA PICKS A HUSBAND 


a strange warmth in her voice, that made him catch his 
breath. He could not make himself realize that this was 
frivolous, empty-headed Delia. 

Buzz ! went the note. 

‘‘ Have you got anything on your mind ? ” she asked 
after a long pause. Again he felt, more poignantly even 
than before, the tenderness of her appeal; and up and 
down his spine ran a sensation not altogether unpleasant. 

Buzz ! went the note. 

He shivered, thrusting his hand through his hair. She 
was standing against the light, graceful, with head bent. 
The merciful twilight in the room hid the unhappy truth 
that Delia’s eyes were of the kind called bulging, and oblit- 
erated the promise of plumpness, held unfulfilled hitherto 
only by grim fasting. She was obviously waiting for him 
to propose. 

For the first time Chester was conscious of the responsi- 
bility of adulthood. He had kissed innumerable girls, 
and nothing had come of it, because he had been a boy, 
and the girls knew he was only a boy. It startled him 
to realize he was a boy no longer, that he possessed a man’s 
capabilities of giving immeasurable happiness and illim- 
itable pain. Yet, withal, he was a child, for he felt the 
tears come to his eyes. 

Buzz ! went the note. 

“ Mein Gott, Henriette! ” came a gruff voice from up- 
stairs. “ Sind dock wahrhaftig seiner hundert Noten auf 
dem Piano, Dass du halt gerade immer nur ehen die eine 
Bum-note schlagen musst! ” 

Delia shut the piano softly. “ You’re awfully quiet,” 
she said. 

“ Am I ? ” he grumbled. 

Are you — afraid of me? ” 

He felt a cold sweat break out on his forehead, seeing 
in a flash that Delia had taken the offensive. He coun- 
tered with a sudden burst of meaningless chatter that 


BARBARA PICKS A HUSBAND 189 

broke off as suddenly as it began and left them exactly 
where they were before. 

‘‘ You weren’t so shy — that night at the Wilkenses,” 
she went on. 

“ I wasn’t so sober either,” he answered quickly. 

He heard her take a sharp breath. ‘‘ Weren’t you 
sober — that night ” 

“ I should say not ! ” 

He heard her say Oh ! ” very faintly, and cried in 
despair to his soul, asking whether he could possibly have 
let the truth come out more clumsily or brutally. 

“ Didn’t you mean — anything at all.^ ” she asked in a 
voice so tragically plaintive that he felt impelled for an 
instant to lie and tell her he did love her; and take the 
consequences. But he knew too well that he would not be 
able to abide Delia Kern even for a week, not to speak of 
a life-time. 

‘‘ I’ve been a brute,” he said. ‘‘ And I thought I’d 
rather have you find it out from me than — just to find it 
out.” 

She laughed harshly. ‘‘My, my! Aren’t we noble ” 

“ I didn’t want to hurt you, Delia,” he cried with im- 
pulsive earnestness. “ I swear I didn’t. I was a fool all 
the way through. I was a fool at the party and a fool 
afterwards, and I made matters worse just because I didn’t 
want to hurt your feelings. Don’t you see.^ I like you a 
lot, Delia. But I know I wouldn’t make any kind of a 
husband, and — and — oh, if I’d thought you really, hon- 
estly cared, I’d have — shot myself. I’ll do it now if it’ll 
make you any happier. I really will. I feel just like 
doing it.” 

But at that point in the tragi-comedy, Delia’s origins 
began to make themselves apparent. “ You low, con- 
temptible — masher!” Delia cried. “You low, hor- 
rid — ” 

He rose to the occasion with a tact and insight one 


190 


BARBARA PICKS A HUSBAND 


would not have expected of him. ‘‘ You don’t mean that,” 
he said quietly, Because it isn’t true, and you know it. 
I’m aa awful ass, but I’m not a scoundrel. I’m infernally 
sorry, and I want you to forgive me.” He held out his 
hand. 

Forgive you.^ ” she cried. “ I should say not. I’m 
going to tell Barbara all about you. You hear.^ Bar- 
bara ! That’ll finish you with her, anyway.” 

“ I don’t care whom you tell,” he answered with that 
new dignity that seemed suddenly to have come upon him. 
‘‘ I deserve to have you tell everybody. But that’s no rea- 
son why we shouldn’t be friends, is it.^ ” 

He smiled and his smile broadened into his familiar, 
appealing, ingratiating grin. She looked up, and re- 
luctantly gave him her hand. 

But she burst wildly into tears when he had gone, bring- 
ing the family about her from all parts of the house. 

Chester crossed the Park at Seventy-second Street. 
Ruth and her father lived in an apartment on Park Avenue 
near Sixty-eighth Street and to walk was simpler than to 
take three trolleys ; besides, he was glad for the recupera- 
tive effect of fresh air. The sky was clouded over now; 
the balminess of the morning had been driven westward by 
a damp wind from the ocean, promising a belated equinoc- 
tial ; and the chiU dusk already lay darkly under the bare 
elms of the Mall, making Shakespeare and Fitz-Green 
Halleck look homeless and ill-used. A goat bleated faintly 
somewhere. 

Chester saw no reason for being particularly proud of 
himself for his performance at the Kerns’. He had 
planned the scene differently. He had rather thought, in 
fact, that that particular half of his ordeal might be 
more amusing than tragic. The interview with Delia had 
proved anything but amusing. A verse from St. Paul, 
which had been made familiar to him by reiteration in 


BARBARA PICKS A HUSBAND 


191 


the chapel at boarding-school, leaped into the forefront 
of his consciousness : ‘‘ When I was a child I spake as a 

child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but 
when I became a man, I put away childish things.” It 
seemed to him that he had suddenly become a man, with a 
man’s shame for the boy’s irresponsible blunderings. Bits 
of wise counsel from his mother and from one or two mas- 
ters at the School and from a great blazing torch of a 
woman who had illuminated the dark places for genera- 
tions of boys there, occurred to him, seeming suddenly un- 
expectedly sensible. He strode eastward, conscious of an 
apprehension at his approaching call on Ruth, quite dif- 
ferent from the mere dread of an infernally disagreeable 
duty, which he had had an hour or more ago on approach- 
ing the house of the Kerns. He had learnt the appalling 
fact that people considered him to have arrived at an 
age at which he was expected to know what he was about. 
The discovery appalled him. He had a lively conscience, 
and was always suffering remorse for some misdeed or 
other; but it was a boy’s remorse and he never took it 
entirely seriously himself. Somehow it had never occurred 
to him that actions not necessarily evil, blunders, indis- 
cretions, thoughtless bits of impulse, could have lifelong 
and tragic consequences for himself and others quite with- 
out number. He wondered suddenly whether he had not 
been wrong in correcting Delia in her estimate of him. 
Perhaps he was a scoundrel. The thought seemed to sink 
like a red-hot iron into his flesh ; and his knees were shak- 
ing as the elevator at last shot him up six flights to the 
Torrey apartment. But it never occurred to him to turn 
back. He was possibly no coward after all. 

Ruth was at home and alone, looking more flower-like 
than ever in chestnut silks of a gossamer lightness. She 
had the doe’s timid grace in every movement ; one half ex- 
pected her any instant to lift her head abruptly, scenting 
danger, and turn and leap crashing away through the 


19 ^ 


BARBARA PICKS A HUSBAND 


underbrush. She was paler than usual, Chester thought. 
She was not strong and had a way of looking fagged after 
only slight exertion. A mere thought could exhaust her 
more completely than a ten-mile walk could exhaust Delia 
or Barbara. A delicate, lovely creature, thought Chester, 
and here he was coming to tell her that his love-making 
had all been a sham, and he begged to be excused ! 

They had tea, Chester, in spite of Mrs. Kern’s coffee and 
Butterkuchen and Apfeltorte, feeling grateful for the 
delicate sustenance Ruth offered, seeing bad times ahead. 
They talked of plays and books and people, timidly, with 
intervals of nerve-racking silence. If it was difficult to 
begin his confession in the case of Delia, it was heart- 
breakingly difficult to commence with Ruth. Ever since 
the Awful Evening, his real qualms had centered about 
Ruth. Delia was a hardy perennial whom no frost could 
permanently injure, but Ruth was a hothouse lily and one 
rough gust might break her. Silence followed silence, 
interrupted only by monosyllables. He saw her bosom 
rise and fall quickly. Then suddenly she stood up and 
went to the window, drawing the curtain aside and looking 
out. 

It’s pouring,” she remarked. 

Jerusalem ! ” he cried. “ What will become of my silk 
hat.? ” 

She did not answer that vital question. 

Chester,” she said suddenly in a low, vibrant voice, 
clutching the edge of the lace curtain and crumpling it 
in her fingers. “ I’ve an awfully bad conscience about 
you. Really.” 

“ You!” 

I’ve behaved abominably toward you. I’ve been want- 
ing to confess for a month but I simply haven’t had the 
courage.” 

“ Confess ? ” he cried incredulously. 

You don’t know how ashamed of myself I am. I’m a 


BARBARA PICKS A HUSBAND 


193 


coward or I would have straightened things out long ago 
before 1 had let you go on for a month giving me things 
and being — kind to me when I didn’t deserve it.” 

Chester frowned, utterly at sea. 

“ I was horribly blue that night at the Wilkenses,” she 
went on. “ And I let you think that — I cared for you. 
It was dreadful of me. I never imagined that I could be 
so — wicked — as to let a man — kiss me, whom I didn’t 
love — ” 

“ You — oh!— ” 

“ I did let you kiss me, Chester, and I think I must have 
let you think that I cared for you very much. Of course, 
you would think so. But I don’t. It’s a terrible confes- 
sion to have to make. It’s kept me awake nights worry- 
ing. I don’t know what you’ll think of me. I like you 
ever so much, Chester. You’re a perfect dear. You’re 
one of the nicest boys I know. But I don’t love you. And 
I know that I never shall — love you. There 1 It’s out, 
and I feel better. Will you forgive me.^^ ” 

Chester’s heart was like an organ, pealing hallelujahs 
through his being. It was all too good to be true. He 
sat speechless, looking serious. He felt like a condemned 
man unexpectedly reprieved, sthl too surprised and stirred 
to speak. It occurred to him that it would not be the 
part of gallantry to undeceive her. 

“ Of course, if that is how you feel — ” he began, try- 
ing to look depressed. 

‘‘ It is, Chester. I’m so sorry, but it would be wicked 
to pretend to feelings that I don’t possess, wouldn’t it.^^ ” 
She was so earnest and so distressed that it seemed to 
Chester brutal rather than gallant to keep the wonderful 
truth to himself. 

‘‘ Suppose — I should tell you — that I came here — to 
make just the same sort of confession.^ ” he remarked ten- 
tatively. 

You didn’t! ” she cried joyfully. 


194 


BARBARA PICKS A HUSBAND 


‘‘ Cross m j heart ! ” 

“ You blessed, blessed boj,” she murmured. Then, with 
a deep sigh of relief, “ I’m so glad you told me.” 

“ Shake ! ” 

They shook hands with feeling. “ You don’t know how 
wonderful it is to have one’s sins forgiven,” said Ruth. 

They each had a fresh cup of tea on the strength of it, 
and before ten minutes were over Chester (who, as before 
said, was an inveterate confider) was pouring into Ruth’s 
eager ears the tale of his love for Barbara Collingwood. 
It seemed to him that Ruth was wonderfully sympathetic. 
She did not tell him why she was so eager that he, rather 
than Tom Paraway, should marry Barbara. Altogether, 
however, they had an extremely happy time of it. 

But when the door closed on Chester at last, Ruth 
walked slowly and thoughtfully and apparently not very 
happily toward the window again. The rain drove tem- 
pestuously against the pane and far below swept in sheets 
against tilted umbrellas and along shining automobile 
tops. It occurred to her how pleasant life might have 
been if, instead of this futile moth-for-the-star longing 
of hers for Tom Paraway, she had fallen in love with nice 
Chester Howell and he with her. It happened that out- 
side the door, waiting for the elevator, Chester Howell was 
thinking practically the same thing. 

Unfortunately, the instinct of the moth for the candle 
is not easily eradicable; and Chester decided to call upon 
Barbara immediately after supper. 


XXI 


B arbara took a taxi to Fordham, which was expen- 
sive but convenient. Her mind was in a whirl, con- 
fronted as it was by the demand for the almost instant 
solution of life’s most perplexing problem. It was not 
prepared for such an ordeal. She was sophisticated 
enough; as Tom had remarked, she knew a lot. But the 
scattered facts which she knew bore about the same rela- 
tion to wisdom that single tomatoes on the vine bear to 
chili sauce. 

Mrs. CoUingwood was one of the great majority who 
find it easier to do than to teach. She had an idea that 
she always allowed Barbara to work out her own problems, 
but actually she did nothing of the kind. In ways, simple 
or subtle, she advised, she could not help advising, being 
clear-sighted herself, with definite principles to guide her. 

Barbara had very few principles ; her only potent guide 
being a certain instinctive reaching out for freedom of 
body and mind and spirit ; and that guide was asleep half 
the time. She was consequently easily influenced by other 
people’s opinions and judgments, easily confused. If cir- 
cumstances had happened to bring her into intimacy with 
the taxi-driver that afternoon, and she had put a certain 
hypothetical question to him, and he had advised her to 
murder her mother and marry all three suitors, she would 
probably not have taken the advice, but she would have 
rejected it for reasons of the conventions rather than basic 
principles. 

Her grandmother was at home, as Barbara was con- 
fident she would be, for Madam CoUingwood never did go 

195 


196 


BARBARA PICKS A HUSBAND 


out, preferring to take her news of the changing world 
from the Duchess, who was an inveterate gadder. 

‘‘ My dear, my dear ! ” she murmured. “ What a 
joy!” 

“ I’ve come for advice. Gran,” Barbara cried, breath- 
lessly. “ Will you give me advice? ” 

“ That depends, my dear,” said the old lady. “ I am 
growing so wise with the years that I generally keep my 
wisdom to myself. We shall see. May I take off your 
hat? Another one! And prettier than the other. How 
much was it? ” 

“ I wouldn’t dare tell you. Gran.” 

“ Shall we take it off? ” 

“ No. I’ve got to go right back.” She strode with 
quick, firm steps to the fireplace and turned. ‘‘ I’m in an 
awful pickle. Cleve Winsor’s father has telegraphed for 
him. He has to go back to-night. He’s coming for his 
final answer at — six-thirty. I’m up against it. I — I 
don’t — Gran, I haven’t the least idea what to do.” 

Do you love him, dear? ” 

“ Yes. I love him very much. At least, I think — I 
do. Sometimes I seem almost to — worship him. Can 
you imagine that. Gran? ” 

Madam Collingwood sank slowly into her accustomed 
rocker and folded her hands. “ Yes, my dear. Women 
do feel that way about men sometimes.” 

But that isn’t all. Sometimes I don’t like him at all. 
Sometimes he makes me squirm. Do you know what I 
mean? The way you feel when you’ve seen a spider and 
brushed him out of the window and know he’s gone, and yet 
seem to feel him crawling down your neck. You know? ” 
She spoke earnestly, but Madam Collingwood could not 
keep herself from noting how charming and trim and clean- 
washed she looked with her perfect skin, flushed, and 
her bright, eager eyes under the fascinating little hat. 
‘‘ Those times I just seem to loathe him. And then 


BARBARA PICKS A HUSBAND 


197 


again — he’s awfully sweet, Gran, with a lot of feeling 
for his family, which is a good sign, don’t you think? 
He’s big and sometimes he’s a little rough, like the man 
you cared for, you know.” 

“ Oh, my dear, don’t let my experience mean anything 
to you, either as guide or warning.” 

“ I can’t help remembering what you said of your 
friend,” said Barbara, quoting softly, “ ‘ He was uncouth, 
even vulgar, but I loved him.’ ” She turned away quickly, 
staring up at the mysterious painting of Lake Lucerne. 
“ I can’t help thinking of that.” 

“ A rough exterior should work neither for nor against 
a man. It is the heart that counts.” 

Barbara turned again slowly. Of course,” she said, 
a little dubiously. “ But we can’t ever know anything 
about another person’s heart. Not really. Rough peo- 
ple have a way of having soft hearts, and smooth people 
have a way of having hard hearts. You can’t tell. 
Everything’s an awful gamble, isn’t it? Life, I mean. 
And marriage especially. When I was at school some of 
us girls went through Sing Sing once. You know, the 
prison. And — do you know ? — life sometimes seems like 
those dark corridors with people in cells on both sides, and 
when you marry, you marry a cell together with the unseen 
convict that’s inside it.” 

“ Oh, my bird ! ” cried the old lady, leaning forward 
impulsively and taking Barbara’s hand. “ You’re mor- 
bid, my dear. You mustn’t think such thoughts.” Her 
voice was suddenly tremulous. “ Life is beautiful, my 
child. There are endless, wonderful surprises in it. And 
if your thoughts are right, there are no cells, but an ever- 
widening freedom, as your understanding deepens, and 
your charity, and you learn that living is not a matter of 
flesh and blood and time and chance, but just of thoughts, 
each thought stronger than those brave men who are kill- 
ing each other in Europe, stronger to kill or to heal or to 


198 


BARBARA PICKS A HUSBAND 


protect empires or democracies. The world will find it 
out some day. And then everybody will be free.” 

Again Barbara turned to the lake of Lucerne. “ I wish 
you could tell me what to do. I’m just up in the air. If 
I could see things through my own eyes I might be able to 
come to some decision. But I can’t. I told you last 
night how it is. Everybody seems to be butting in. This 
morning a person I scarcely ever heard of before upset 
everything by telling Mother awful things about Cleve, 
And now one part of me wants to go and marry him to 
spite Mother and defend him and help him. You know.f^ 
And the other part of me wants to run away from him 
and hide. It’s the limit.” 

The old lady did not answer, sitting motionless with 
eyes fixed on the alabaster-like hands in her lap. With 
her right hand she turned her wedding-ring pensively on 
its finger. The silence was broken by a clock somewhere 
striking once. 

What’s that? ” cried Barbara, in a panic. 

‘‘ It must be half-past four.” 

There was a hunted, half-demented look in Barbara’s 
eyes as she crossed the room quickly and picked up her 
gloves where she had dropped them on the ancient piano. 
She started to draw them on and suddenly desisted, letting 
the fingers hang limply. 

‘‘ I want — to marry — him,” she said with difficulty. 
“ There are times when I feel as though I should die if I 
didn’t. And yet — there’s something inside me — that 
seems to tell me — to look out. It may be just a freak of 
cowardice. But there it is. Oh, Gran, can’t you tell me 
what to do ? ” 

Madam CoUingwood rose, and it seemed to Barbara 
that as she came toward her, her eyes were like deep wells 
at night. “ If I could, my dear, if I could ! ” murmured 
the old lady. “ But you said yourself, you know, that 
you might be able to come to a clear decision if there were 


BARBARA PICKS A HUSBAND 


199 


not so many people trying to guide you or force you this 
way or that. You are quite right. It is the nobler side 
of you that said that. It is the weaker side that wants 
another to solve your problems for you. Good-by, dear. 
I won’t keep you. You are a good fighter. Head high 
and never surrender ! ” 

They kissed, both conscious that a decisive battle would 
have been won or lost when they met again. 

It was beginning to rain as Barbara closed the door of 
the little house on Merlin Road, but she jeopardized the 
second hat that day running across the yard to the taxi, 
rather than lose the minute or two it would cost to ring 
the bell and borrow an umbrella. She told the driver her 
address, adding “ Rush ! ” but a long skid on the swim- 
ming pavement scarce a half dozen blocks south, brought 
them abruptly face to face with a drenched and indignant 
policeman who jumped on the running board and gruffly 
ordered the chauffeur to drive to a police station in the 
neighborhood. The chauffeur prepared to turn, but Bar- 
bara knocked indignantly on the window. 

You shan’t turn around,” she cried hotly. You’ve 
got to take me home.” Then to the policeman, ‘‘ I’ve got 
to go home. How will this do ? ” She took a bill out of 
her purse. It happened to be one for twenty dollars. 
The man’s eyes looked wistful ; but he shook his head. 

“ I’ve got to get home,” she cried desperately. ‘‘ Don’t 
you see? There’s a man that’s — ” 

“ Oh, well, run along,” muttered the officer. Then to 
the chauffeur, “ I’ve got your number. Come in the morn- 
ing. Beat it.” 

‘‘ Oh, thanks ! ” cried Barbara with feeling. 

Once more they were speeding southward. It occurred 
to her now for the first time that she did not know why 
she was so madly anxious to get home. Cleve was not 
coming before six-thirty. It was barely five. She was 


200 


BARBARA PICKS A HUSBAND 


rushing because there was so little time left to think it all 
out to a conclusion, and because there was so little time, 
she did not dare begin. She wanted advice, advice. She 
wanted some one to tell her what to do. Again she beat 
against the glass behind the chauffeur’s back. Stop at 
the next telephone ! ” she cried. 

They drove on through the wet dark an interminable 
distance, and Barbara was about to beat upon the window 
once more when the car swerved sharply to the right and 
stopped before a drug store. Once more she imperilled 
the expensive hat. 

She called up Tom Paraway. He was not at home but 
was expected any minute, she was informed by a cultured 
voice. 

Barbara hung up the receiver sharply and dashed back 
into the car. ‘‘ Stop at another drug store in the 
Eighties,” she ordered, slamming the door. They sped 
southward again. 

In the Eighties Barbara once more encountered Mrs. 
Paraway’s musical tones. The Paraway household was 
evidently still in a state of expectancy with regard to Tom. 
He had been away all day, it appeared, and Mrs. Paraway 
was beginning to worry because he had been extremely ill 
the night before as a result of a fall. ‘‘ Isn’t this Barbara 
Collingwood.P ” she asked sweetly. 

Barbara did not answer, but hung up the receiver, sit- 
ting rigid in the booth an instant, asking herself to whom 
now she should turn. She felt herself trembling, and over 
her cheekbones she was conscious of the glow of fever. 
She opened the door of the booth to get a breath of air 
and closed it again quickly to keep from the clerk the 
interesting fact that she was sobbing. 

An inspiration brought control and new hope. Who 
could give her better advice than Zinotchka Hallam.^ She 
dismissed the thought as absurd, and left the drug store 
with the firm intention of telling the driver to take her 


BARBARA PICKS A HUSBAND 


201 


home, but the only word she uttered as she dashed out of 
the store again into the taxicab, was ‘‘Marlborough.” 
And again, they were off. 

Mrs. Hallam was in her room, and begged to have Miss 
Collingwood brought up. The sudden upward rush of the 
elevator in the hands of an adventurous youth of thirteen 
or fourteen nearly snuffed out the trembling flame of Bar- 
bara’s consciousness. Her teeth began to chatter, but 
she stilled them. The elevator stopped suddenly dead and 
Barbara clutched her bosom, swallowing hard. 

Half a minute later she was saying “ How do you do ? ” 
with apparent composure to a tall, foreign-looking lady 
who looked like the photographs of the Empress of Aus- 
tria, with a tower of wonderful hair on her head and deep 
eyes, jet black, dreamy and sad. Her age might have 
been anything between twenty-five and forty-five. Bar- 
bara admitted reluctantly that thirty was a fair estimate. 

She was very Russian, and Barbara, looking for short- 
comings, was not slow to perceive that Mrs. Hallam wished 
no one to forget for an instant who or whence she was. 
She wore an N in diamonds, surmounted by a crown, at 
her throat. That was the gift of the Czar, sent her after 
a visit to her studio in the days when Petrograd was still 
St. Petersburg. She wore heavy ear-rings of steel-col- 
ored pearls, and chains on chains of pearls hung about her 
neck and down amid the folds of her steel-colored, loose- 
flowing gown. She moved with extraordinary dignity and 
grace. Barbara was enormously impressed, feeling, of all 
things, dowdy and bourgeois. She might have felt less un- 
worthy had she known that Zinotchka Hallam was the 
daughter of a Lithuanian peasant-girl who had strayed too 
close to a grand-ducal hunting party. But she did not 
know it, and felt insignificant and a little helpless in the 
presence of obvious aristocracy. 

“ You are very brave to come to see me,” Mrs. Hallam 
remarked in her melodious, foreign voice. 


202 


BARBARA PICKS A HUSBAND 


Barbara thought that that was a rather conceited re- 
mark to make, and felt more confident, but said nothing. 

“ It is always brave,” the lady went on, “ to face the 
truth. I don’t think a Russian girl would be brave, that 
way. A Russian girl would either throw over Cleve with- 
out another word or marry him in spite of facts. She 
would not go to the hateful bearer of bad tidings, to inves- 
tigate. Would you think it impertinent of me if I told you 
that I admired you for your courage in coming here.? ” 
Her voice was measured and friendly and patronizing. 

I wanted to make sure that the story was true,” said 
Barbara, a little sharply, for she did not like to be patron- 
ized. 

‘‘ Quite true, my dear.” It struck Barbara that the 
words were not easily spoken. Mrs. Hallam was fingering 
her pearls. There was a longer silence than ladies, proud 
of their savoir-faire, generally allow. 

Barbara rose suddenly to go. How utterly absurd had 
been her impulse to come here. She had not come, as Mrs. 
Hallam imagined, to find out whether or not the story was 
true. She had known from the first that it was. She had 
come to ask for advice from the one person in New York 
who knew Cleve Winsor. It seemed to her she must have 
been slightly crazy. She felt dizzy and put out her hand 
to steady herself against a chair. 

The next thing she knew she was lying on the sofa and 
the most melodious of birds was twittering his morning 
song in her ears. It took her quite a while to discover 
that the bird was none other than Mrs. Hallam, murmur- 
ing incessantly tender, meaningless things such as one 
would utter to a child who finds his comfort in the tone 
rather than the word. Barbara opened her eyes. “ Oh, 
dear ! ” she cried softly, conscious that something awful 
must have happened without knowing what it was. 

“ Don’t try to speak just yet, little flower, little flower,” 
murmured the Russian lady. 


BARBARA PICKS A HUSBAND 


203 


“ What happened? ” 

“ You fainted, mj dear.” 

“What time is it?” Barbara asked this question in 
sudden panic. 

Zinotchka Hallam drew the most diminutive of watches 
from the voluminous steel-gray folds of her dress. It was 
like drawing a glittering minnow from the ocean. 

“ Ten minutes to six.” 

“ Thank you. I’m so sorry to have been a nuisance. 
I was just going. I think I’ll have to go now.” 

The Russian laid a feather-light hand on her shoulder. 

Not yet, not quite yet.” 

“ I’ve got to go home. Really. There’s — some one 
coming. I’ve got to dress.” 

“ Just a minute, my dear flower. I feel as though I 
could not let you go. I’m not old enough to be your 
mother, but I feel as though I were. Is it — Cleve — who 
is coming to-night ? ” 

Barbara turned her head slightly on the satin pillow and 
gazed with what seemed to the other woman uncannily 
cold inquisitiveness into Mrs. Hallam’s eyes. Mrs. Hal- 
lam understood that that glance meant that it was none 
of her business whether it was Cleve who was coming or 
not. But Barbara evidently found the sad eyes of the 
Russian disarming, for her own eyes seemed to darken 
slowly, losing their hardness. Slowly she turned away 
her head again. 

“ You came here really to see what kind of creature 
this Russian adventuress was, didn’t you?” said Mrs. 
Hallam. “ It would have been a comfort to you to find 
her horrid and coarse and seductive, for every blot of that 
sort would have been an excuse for — Cleve, or at least a 
palliation. But, you see, I am none of those things, 
though I have a thousand other faults which I carefully 
hide from the people on whom I want to make an impres- 
sion. I did not lay any traps for — Cleve. We fell in 


204 


BARBARA PICKS A HUSBAND 


love quite without knowing what was happening. But he 
did not plaj fair. I found that I was one of three.” 

Are you sure ? ” 

My dear ! ” exclaimed Mrs. Hallam. ‘‘ A Russian 
woman will take a lover on faith, but not a rival. I went 
to see them both. They were nice things in their way, and 
quite frank. I think they enjoyed being frank.” 

‘‘ I suppose they would,” remarked Barbara thought- 
fully. 

But that was not the worst,” went on Mrs. Hallam, 
with a sudden exclamation of comic despair that held its 
note of bitterness. “ I could have shared him with one, 
even with two. Women can do that. There is enough 
greatness in some men, greatness of mind and heart, that 
a woman can take a third of him and still have more than 
most women who marry that rarest of Arctic birds, a mon- 
ogamist. Cleve was not like that. There was nothing 
that one could divide by three.” With a graceful sweep 
of the hand she touched lightly first her brow and then her 
heart. “ Nothing here and nothing there. He looked 
like a young Apollo, and he was only an American college 
boy. And that, my dear, is a desert.” 

Barbara did not answer, but lay staring across the 
room, at an outlandish vase, evidently Russian, and some 
foreign-looking knick-knacks and picture-frames, bronze 
inlaid with enamel, a good dress-suitcase full. It struck 
her as remotely amusing that this lady of the world should 
find it necessary to carry her stage properties about with 
her; and yet the stage properties impressed Barbara. 
They undoubtedly gave personality to the cold elegance 
of this typical, private sitting-room of a typical hotel. 
Barbara felt suddenly helpless. If Zinotchka Hallam with 
all her adroitness and experience could not hold Cleve 
Winsor, what chance had she, Barbara Collingwood, of 
holding him, with the experience of twenty-one and only a 
certain shallow sophistication to achieve where Zinotchka 


BARBARA PICKS A HUSBAND 


205 


Hallam’s worldly wisdom had failed? She sat up, ad- 
justing as well as she could her touselled hair, and reaching 
for her hat. Mrs. Hallam helped her to her feet. 

Oh, thank you,” murmured Barbara. “ I’m all right 
now. I really feel refreshed. I’ve — I’ve had the dick- 
ens of a day. It makes my head buzz to think of it. 
I feel like the heroine of a movie thriller. I’ve been 
wrecked in an automobile, I’ve been arrested, I’ve fainted 
away.” She laughed shortly. I think I’ll go to bed 
when I get home.” She held out her hand. ‘‘ Good-by. 
I’m so sorry I made a spectacle of myself. I’m not the 
fainting sort as a rule.” 

For an instant Barbara had an awful fear that Mrs. 
Hallam might take her in her arms and kiss her; for- 
eigners had a way of taking liberties. But her fear was 
without foundation. Mrs. Hallam was adequately re- 
served. Her voice only was unequivocally friendly and 
intimate. I hope we shall meet again sometime. Do 
you think we shall? ” 

Barbara looked unflinchingly into Mrs. Hallam’s dark 
eyes. “ That depends, doesn’t it? ” she said. 

A smile flickered at the corners of Mrs. Hallam’s lips. 

I understand, my dear,” she said softly, deciding that on 
the whole it would be better not to laugh. 

I wonder if you do? ” said Barbara. 

I understand this much, at least, that nobody can 
know half — no, not a tenth — of what goes on in a wom- 
an’s heart when she knows she is going to have an offer of 
marriage in half an hour.” 

An awful impulse to remark that she had had proposals 
before this, shot into Barbara’s mind, but she checked it in 
time. Five minutes later she was in her own particular 
taxicab again, driving northward toward the place she was 
in the habit of calling home. 


XXII 


O F course, Barbara had not meant what she said 
when she had expressed her intention of going to 
bed when she reached home. Her frantic (and very ex- 
pensive) taxi drive to Fordham and back had left her no 
nearer a solution to her problem than it found her. Cleve 
Winsor was coming at six-thirty. That fact was the same 
at six-fifteen as it had been at three. Yet somehow she 
felt easier in her mind. The whole matter did not seem 
of such enormous consequence as it had. She was phys- 
ically weary and her brain was slightly benumbed. A 
hypnotist would have found her an acceptable subject. 

Delia was waiting for her with a face full of news when 
Barbara arrived at the house in West Fifty-seventh Street, 
and followed Barbara quickly to her bedroom and shut the 
door with interesting solemnity. Delia’s face was red and 
about her eyes were still traces of the flowing of many 
tears. Barbara did not want to see Delia at that moment, 
but the eyes were silent appellants against her impulse to 
beg Delia to leave her alone and come to-morrow. 

You’ve got to know something,” Delia exclaimed with 
more than a touch of melodrama. 

‘‘Oh, heavens. Dee!” cried Barbara. “You haven’t 
raked up that old story, too, have you? Because if you 
have, I’m not going to listen.” 

“ What old story? ” 

“Well, if you don’t know. I’m not going to tell you. 
I’ve got to dress. Dee. Really. I’m awfully sorry.” 

“ You’ve got to hear.” Delia’s voice was actually trem- 
ulous. 

“ You sound awfully queer.” 

206 


BARBARA PICKS A HUSBAND 


‘‘I’ve just come from Ruth’s. He got engaged to us 
both, one night, when he didn’t know what he was doing. 
And now he’s thrown us both over. Ruth doesn’t care. 
She doesn’t love him. But — I — do — and — ” 

“ For heaven’s sake, Delia, who was it? ” 

“ Who ? ” Delia wailed. “ Why, Chester, of course ! ” 

“ Chester ! I didn’t know you — ” 

“ Well — I do.” Delia was on the verge of tears again. 
“ Say ! ” cried Barbara not without admiration. 
“ Isn’t he the gay, young sport? He’s been rushing me, 
too.” 

“ I know it ! ” cried Delia sharply. “ And that’s why 
I had to tell you. You’re the one he’s really in love with. 
But Ruth and I want you to know the deceitful person 
he is — ” 

“ Ruth? I thought you said she didn’t care? ” 

“ Well, she doesn’t. She’s a doormat an3nvay. Any- 
body can brush their feet on Ruth. But no man can brush 
his feet on me. I tell you that. And Chester Howell is 
going to find out that he can’t play with my affections 
that way and then expect me to keep quiet while he goes 
ahead making love to another girl just because she’s got 
social position. It isn’t your fault that you’ve got social 
position. Nor your father’s either. And I don’t believe 
your grandfather was a bit better than my father. He 
came from a farm in America and my father came from a 
farm in Germany. I don’t see why you should be in the 
Four Hundred, then, and I — ” 

“ You’re talking perfect nonsense. Dee,” said Barbara 
a little coldly. “ I’ve never played up my social position 
and certainly no one wants to marry me for it. But I’ve 
got to dress. Really. You come to-morrow morning and 
I’ll promise to talk all day if you want to.” 

“ No. I want you to know all now,” said Delia with 
solemn determination. 

“ All right. Go ahead. But I’ve got to dress.” 


208 


BARBARA PICKS A HUSBAND 


Delia did go ahead, unfolding the tale of Chester’s 
iniquities minutely and with color. Barbara did not con- 
tinue dressing after all. She stood motionless at the door 
of her closet, holding a flimsy bit of silken flame in her left 
hand, while Delia, with glowing eyes, rehearsed the drama 
of trusting love betrayed. Delia had no sense of humor. 
Her story was long, being rich in detail. Before it was 
half over a curious light began to play in Barbara’s eyes 
and about her lips. Delia, intent on her own tragedy, 
did not notice that Barbara was having difficulty retain- 
ing a respectful gravity. She went on with passionate 
fervor. But when she told how Chester had come in top 
hat and cutaway to inform her with fitting ceremony that 
he considered himself disengaged, Barbara burst into peals 
of laughter more carefree than any she had uttered for 
days. Delia flushed darkly, looking gross and savage as 
she glared with trembling lips at Barbara and her hilarity. 

“ You may think this is funny,” she cried. You 
wouldn’t think it so funny if it was you that was getting 
left.” 

‘‘ It is funny. Dee ! ” cried Barbara through the subsid- 
ing laughter. ‘‘ Really. It is. You’ll think so yourself 
in a day or two. But say ! Did he go straight to Ruth’s 
from your house.? ” 

Yes. But Ruth fooled him. She didn’t care.” 

Again laughter got the better of sympathy. Delia 
groped for the door-knob. 

“ Oh, I hate you,” she moaned. I never thought — I 
could hate — anybody — the way I hate you.” 

Barbara stopped laughing. Don’t be silly. Dee. It 
isn’t my fault if Chester goes round making an idiot of 
himself. Is it ? ” 

“ I’m going home,” wailed Delia. 

I’m sorry. Honestly, Dee.” 

‘‘ Yes, you are ! You’re nothing of the sort. You’re 
gloating over me.” 


BARBARA PICKS A HUSBAND 


209 


You’re perfectly silly.” 

“ I’m going home.” 

Barbara almost let her go without another word, but 
at the last moment she threw her arms about her, instead, 
and drew her down on the edge of the bed. Delia wept 
fitfully over her shoulder and Barbara pressed her hand 
affectionately, gazing with some concern at the clock on 
the mantel. Her hand may have seemed to indicate to 
Delia that she was moved with pity, but her face, which 
Delia could not see, was quite undisturbed, except by the 
tidings of the clock. But the cry did Delia immense good, 
and Barbara’s apparent sympathy restored somewhat the 
hero-worshiper’s shattered faith. As Delia was going, 
Barbara mentioned casually the name of a youngster not 
yet out of college whose devotion Delia had spurned only 
the day before. The effect was what is called electric. 
When Delia finally departed she had a new glint in her 
eye. 

Barbara with her head curiously filled with Chester 
Howell and his escapade, dressed with mad haste, but even 
so, she was still incompletely attired when she heard the 
ring of the front door-bell and knew that at last the fatal 
moment was at hand. She had told Cleve Winsor that 
supper was at six-thirty, and here he was. She heard the 
soft footsteps of the butler ascending the stairs. WTiat 
was she going to say to Cleve Winsor.^ What was her 
mother going to say to Cleve Winsor? Would she ac- 
tually refuse him entrance as she had threatened? Evi- 
dently not, for here was the butler. There was something 
strange about this. Her mother was not in the habit of 
changing her mind. The butler knocked. ‘‘ Mr. Far- 
away is calling, Miss Barbara.” 

She sat down on the edge of the bed immensely re- 
lieved, leaning her head against the cold brass ball on the 
bed post, and smiling beatifically. It was not that she 
was glad to see Tom, she said to herself, but that she 


210 


BARBARA PICKS A HUSBAND 


dreaded anything resembling conflict. It seemed to her 
that all her qualities as a fighter had been shredded to bits. 
Tom was a momentary reprieve. For a minute she did 
not think of the fact that he was also a complication, mak- 
ing any private interview with Cleve Winsor impossible. 
But even when she did think of this, it did not seem to 
bother her. Nothing that promised peace even for ten 
minutes could be anything but a blessing. She told the 
butler to ask Mr. Paraway to come up to the sitting-room, 
and hastily put on the finishing touches. 

She heard Tom ascend the stairs and greet Mrs. Col- 
lingwood. His voice was like salve to chapped lips. 
There was healing in its quiet, unemotional strength. She 
felt suddenly elated. 

Wibh more care even than usual she examined herself in 
the mirror before going forth. Her face did not satisfy 
her. There were certain new lines elongating it, which she 
did not like ; and the pink of her cheeks, generally sup- 
posed to be indestructible by fag or illness alike, was 
contracted to a spot of red, high on each cheek. She 
amended that situation by the aid of a little jar that re- 
stored the customary glow in no more time than it takes 
to rub each cheek lightly. She regarded her lips crit- 
ically in the mirror, pursing them up. A little rubbing 
made them likewise glow with their natural color. She 
powdered her nose lightly. She had never been so glad 
before to see Tom Paraway. 

If Tom was similarly moved, he disguised his feelings, 
for he was quite matter of fact as he greeted her. Her 
first emotion was relief at seeing no bandages ; she had had 
visions of a swathed head. But his appearance was quite 
normal. There was a bit of a patch on his crown, giving 
the impression of a bald spot, but beside this there was no 
evidence of his furious encounter with his whilom guest 
the night before. Mrs. Collingwood disappeared through 
one door as Barbara appeared through the other. 


BARBARA PICKS A HUSBAND 


211 


Barbara held out her hand, and Tom shook it uncon- 
cernedly as he would a man’s. “ My eye ! ” he cried, look- 
ing her over with an admiration that was slightly ironical. 
“ Preparedness ! ” 

She lifted her chin sharply. “ I didn’t dress up for 
you.” 

‘‘ So I suspected,” he remarked, rubbing one cheek 
meditatively. 

Barbara understood the significance of the gesture and 
walked past him to the window without answering. She 
happened to know that Tom considered paint vulgar. 
She considered it vulgar herself, using it now and then 
only because she was convinced that she applied it so 
expertly that no one would guess that it was paint. She 
glanced through the crack between the window-frame and 
the shade; then slowly turned again to Tom Paraway. 
Her resentment evaporated. She was in a mood to be 
grateful for his friendly criticism, since it implied a kind 
of protective interest, and at that moment she wanted 
nothing half so much as to be protected. 

They sat down on the broad Davenport. “ Did you 
come because I telephoned? ” asked Barbara. 

“ Yes. I just got your message a half hour ago or I’d 
have come sooner.” 

“ I didn’t leave any message.” 

You called three times. I supposed that that meant 
that you wanted to talk to me.” 

She laughed softly at that. ‘‘ What did your mother 
think of it ? ” 

‘‘ My mother was noncommittal. I suspect she has a 
bad conscience. She always does — when she hurts any 
one.” He spoke the words with some difficulty. 

‘‘ Tell her from me, will you, Tom, that I didn’t mind 
— very much — and that she needn’t feel sorry for my 
sake? I’ve done a lot of — nasty things myself off and 
on, so I don’t feel that I have any right — to throw 


BARBARA PICKS A HUSBAND 


stones.” Her voice was unusually gentle and humble. 
Tom frowned, puzzled, glancing at her where she sat, bent 
forward, with her folded hands between her knees. 

“ I did want like the dickens to talk to you this after- 
noon, Tom,” she went on, with eyes fixed on a bit of shin- 
ing brass at the other side of the room. ‘‘ Cleve’s father 
has telegraphed for him, and he has to go back home to- 
night. He told me at three. I asked him to come to 
dinner. He ought to be here any minute.” Her eyes 
roved nervously over to the clock on the mantelpiece. It 
indicated twenty minutes to seven. 

Tom rose quickly. “ That’s a hint, isn’t it.? ” 

She clutched his arm. “ I didn’t mean it for a hint, 
Tom. I want — to talk to you. That’s why I tried 
to get hold of you this afternoon. It seemed to me I’d go 
crazy if I didn’t get some advice somewhere, and no one 
could give me any; no one but mother, of course, and 
mother’s advice doesn’t count. It’s never disinterested.” 

“What makes you think my advice would be disinter- 
ested ? ” 

“ I don’t know,” she said slowly, “ except that you’re 
fair, and wouldn’t ever take advantage of any one asking 
your opinion.” 

“ How do you know I wouldn’t? ” His voice was low 
and rather serious. 

“ I just know.” 

“ Well, shoot,” said he. 

“ Cleve’s coming for his definite answer to-night,” Bar- 
bara said abruptly. 

Tom rose to his feet and stood beside her, gazing down 
on the head of shimmering yellow hair. “ You don’t want 
me to tell you whether you ought to marry him or not, do 
you? ” he asked, with an absurd gesture of helplessness. 

“ I suppose not,” she answered thoughtfully, in a 
strained voice. “ But I’m just weak-minded enough to 
wish that somebody would. I’ve thought about it all so 


BARBARA PICKS A HUSBAND 


213 


much that I don’t seem able to think any more. What’s 
worse, I don’t seem to care what I do or what becomes 
of me. I only feel sure that whatever I do, I’ll be sorry 
for it afterwards. It’s ghastly.” 

“ You’d be sorrier if you took any one’s advice.” 

I suppose so.” 

You know, you’re not naturally amenable to advice,” 
he said smiling, astride of a cane-bottomed chair before 
her. I suspect that if you ever took any you’d never 
forgive the person that gave it to you.” 

“ That’s a polite way of saying I’m pig-headed, I sup- 
pose.? ” 

I don’t know. You’re independent, mainly. You 
prefer to learn by experience.” 

“ I don’t squeal if things go wrong, anyway.” 

“ I know you don’t. I think you’re a good deal of 
a fellow, myself.” 

She shrugged her shoulders, evidently gratified, yet try- 
ing not to look too pleased. “ I’ve really tried to be 
wise, Tom,” she said in a low voice. ‘‘ I’ve really gone 
out of my way to get advice from people who ought to 
know.” 

I wonder,” mused Tom, whether it was advice you 
wanted or whether you just preferred having some one 
else do your thinking for you.? ” 

He heard her catch her breath. I hadn’t — thought 
— of that,” she said. “ Perhaps it was just mental lazi- 
ness. My head is tired. I don’t seem to be able to think 
straight. What do you think of Cleve, Tom? ” 

He laughed softly, tipping back the chair. There you 
go again. You want to go easy, asking one man’s opin- 
ion of another. Especially when you know that both men 
have, well, call it a profound regard for you.” 

There was a moment’s pause. “ I trust your opinion 
a lot,” said Barbara at last almost plaintively. 

I am grateful for that.” 


BARBARA PICKS A HUSBAND 


^14 

I think I’d be willing to accept — as gospel — your 
judgment of a man.” She spoke the words slowly and 
with sincerity. 

Tom looked at her and let the forelegs of the chair 
descend to the floor. “ Don’t take any man’s say-so for 
gospel, Bee. A man may want to be unprejudiced and 
think that he is really fair and just, and all the time his 
feelings may be playing jackrabbits with his vision. 
That’s the devil — the possibility that one may be lying 
without knowing it.” 

A wonderful sense of quiet-after-storm came over Bar- 
bara as she listened to him. With Tom she always felt a 
happy absence of strain. The thought suddenly occurred 
to her that this was the glory of marriage, that a man 
and a woman should sit together and quietly talk over the 
tangles of life, warm with love and growing in understand- 
ing; calm, yet conscious always of the ecstasy ready to 
break into wings from any brown, commonplace shell of 
a word. 

For a minute or two they sat in silence, both happier 
than they had ever been together. ‘‘ Tom,” said Barbara 
then, in a voice so musical that he scarcely recognized it, 
“ I don’t care what you say. Your judgment may be all 
off, but it’s not half as off as mine. I’m going to put the 
whole matter up to you.” She paused, then she went on, 
pronouncing the words with deliberation, Shall I tell 
Cleve Winsor that I won’t marry him.'^ ” 

He looked up sharply, recognizing something beside 
the desire for advice in her tones. There was a note of 
alluring coquetry there that sent the blood to his head 
in a sudden wave, and ran up and down his back as though 
his back were a harp. He wanted to jump up from his 
chair and take a walk, but tradition opposed such evi- 
dences of emotion ; he merely gritted his teeth, and in his 
attempt to control the boiling springs within, spoke a 
bit more coolly than he intended. 


BARBARA PICKS A HUSBAND 


215 


“ Suit yourself,” he said. “ It’s your own funeral.” 

Barbara had evidently not expected quite so unro- 
mantic a reply, for she frowned, and began tapping the 
floor with one flame-colored slipper. With her eyes on 
the slipper as it glinted, catching the light, she said softly, 
‘‘ Don’t you like me any more ? ” 

He did not answer at once, but gulped and cleared his 
throat. ‘‘ Of course I like you.” 

She nodded dreamily three times. Well.f^ ” she mur- 
mured. 

‘‘ That has nothing to do with the case.” 

She turned suddenly and looked at him with the ten- 
derest, most trusting glance in the world. It staggered 
him a little. It was so unexpected. “ Aren’t you inter- 
ested any more — in my future ? ” 

“ Of course, I’m interested.” His voice had a shade of 
irritation in it. It struck him that he was being most in- 
fernally tempted; and he did not enjoy resisting. 

Well.^ ” queried Barbara. 

He looked searchingly into the face raised to his. 
There was a tender appeal in those eyes such as he had 
not seen there since Barbara had been a little girl. They 
were beautiful eyes, warmed thus with the glow of tender- 
ness ; childdike eyes, deep-seeing, eager, innocent. 

“ You asked me to marry you two days ago,” she said. 

I know I did.” 

A long silence followed, broken at last by Barbara, 
speaking softly and with evident difficulty. What’s 
come over you since then, Tom.^ You haven’t been the 
same at all. You’ve been cross and critical and standoff- 
ish and — ” 

He crossed the room suddenly — for him an unusual 
betrayal of emotion — turning sharply at the end of four 
strides. 

‘‘ I ha’ven^t changed,” he cried almost vehemently. 

‘‘ Well.^ ” murmured Barbara. 


216 


BARBARA PICKS A HUSBAND 


He took a quick step nearer; and at that moment the 
front door bell rang. 

Barbara jumped to her feet. “Heavens!” she cried. 
“ It’s Cleve.” 

“ He won’t eat you.” 

“Oh, but there’ll be a row. Don’t you understand.'^ 
Mother says she’s not going to let him in. There’ll be 
a row. And I just can’t bear the thought of another 
row.” 

Your nerves are on edge,” he said with just that 
brotherly inflection which she wished at the moment least 
to hear. “ Why don’t you shake the lot of us and go to 
bed.^ You may do something foolish if you don’t get 
some sleep one of these days.” 

She sank down on the arm of the couch, without an- 
swering. The door-bell rang once more. She straight- 
ened up, shuddering. “ Why doesn’t some one open the 
door.'^ ” she cried nervously. 

“ Do you want him to come in.^ ” 

Barbara raised her handkerchief suddenly to her lips 
and crossed to the darker part of the room where the 
bay-window was, sinking down on the window-seat and 
holding back the shade and staring out into the wet night. 

“ Hadn’t I better be going ” said Tom. 

She let the shade fall from her hand, but did not change 
her posture, now staring at the cedar-green holland. 
“ That depends,” she whispered. 

“ On what.^ ” 

“ On you.” 

He found sudden difficulty in articulating. “How?” 
he asked at last. 

She turned a haggard face toward him. “ If you don’t 
know — I can’t tell you.” 

He went over to her and reached out both hands. She 
laid her own in them, looking up at him with large eyes. 

“ You’re a brick,” he said. “ And I needn’t tell you 


BARBARA PICKS A HUSBAND 




what other things I think you are. You might get con- 
ceited. But I want you to do me a favor.” 

“ Yes.? ” she said breathlessly. 

I want you to forget your mother and Brother Winsor 
and all of us, and go to bed, and get some sleep. Then 
when you’ve slept for twenty-four hours we’ll return to 
conversation. How about it.? ” 

She drew away her hands and let them hang limply. 
But she made no attempt to retort. She merely closed her 
eyes, moaning ever so faintly. For an instant her head 
nodded to this side and that, as though she had lost the 
power of balancing it. “ I am dead tired,” she murmured. 
“ I’m tired out with the struggle. I don’t want to fight 
any more. If you really still want me — I’ll — give in, 
Tom. I’ll — marry you.” 

His mouth opened slowly and closed again with a snap. 
Barbara straightened up on the window-seat. Her face 
seemed horribly white about the area of rouge. 

‘‘ I do still want you. Bee,” he said at last in low tones, 
as though he were having difficulty keeping his voice clear. 
“ But I couldn’t think of taking you under these condi- 
tions. You’ve been spinning on your ear so, that you 
don’t know whether you’re standing on your head or your 
feet. I don’t want you to marry me because you’re tired 
out and because marrying me looks like a simple way of 
getting the problem settled. You might discover after a 
week of quiet that you hated me like poison; and that 
would be too bad. You see, you’d get over your tired- 
ness, and then you’d begin to think of these other fellows 
again, and perhaps consider that I’d taken advantage of 
you and feel imprisoned.” 

“ You — do — think I’m weak-minded ! ” she cried 
faintly. 

No, I don’t ! ” he answered with emphasis. And you 
know it. Your mind’s all right when it’s working. But 
it isn’t working now. It’s lying down. I don’t blame 


218 


BARBARA PICKS A HUSBAND 


your mind for lying down, Barbara. It needs a rest. 
But for both our sakes I’m not going to let you throw 
yourself in my arms just because you’re too worn out to 
do anything else.” 

She grasped the edges of the window-seat cushion, look- 
ing up at him. It seemed to Tom that the air in the room 
grew suddenly chilly. Her mouth seemed to diminish to 
a straight, sharp line. ‘‘ Just as you say,” she answered. 
She rose to her feet. “ You know best, of course.” 

“ Don’t take it that way. Bee ! ” 

Barbara returned to the Davenport. “ I don’t know 
what you mean,” she said frigidly, turning. “ There’s 
only one way to take it. I tell you that I’ve decided to 
accept you, and you answer that you’ve changed your 
mind. That’s all there is to it. I’m not going to hold 
you against your will.” 

‘‘ Bee, you’re talking through your hat. I haven’t 
changed my mind, and you know it.” 

“ I don’t see that there is any use arguing about it, do 
you.^ ” she remarked with icy courtesy. 

« Yes, I do.” 

‘‘ Please don’t.” 

But at that moment a familiar voice became audible 
below. “ Look here, you ! ” it was shouting. “ I’ve had 
an invitation to supper in this house to-night, and there 
aren’t enough English butlers in New York City to turn 
me out. Y’understand.? ” 

Tom gave Barbara a quick glance. She was standing 
rigid, with flushed face, twisting a push button in its cave 
in the arm of the Davenport. “ Your friend seems to 
have arrived all right,” he remarked with the faintest hint 
of a smile. 

Barbara lifted her head sharply, went to the door and 
opened it. “ Mother ! ” she called. 

Mrs. Collingwood appeared promptly from Barbara’s 
bedroom. “ Yes, Barbara.'^ ” 


BARBARA PICKS A HUSBAND ^19 

WiU you please see that Mr. Winsor is allowed to 
come in.'^ ” said Barbara in an icy whisper. 

“ Mr. Winsor is not going to have supper here.” 

“ Mr. Winsor is going to have supper here.” 

“ I have given in to you very often, Barbara, but I can- 
not give in to you now. It would be wicked of me to give 
in to you now.” 

“ Do you want me to make a scene before the butler.^ ” 

“ You will have to use your own judgment as to that.” 

This dialogue was carried on in fierce whispers in the 
corridor. The contestants below seemed to be awaiting 
its outcome, for they were silent until quiet had again 
fallen on the upper hall. Then Cleve Winsor’s voice 
again made itself heard. “ There’s no use your trying to 
use force, old man. You saw what I did to that fellow 
last night. Well, I’m stiU strong.” 

‘‘ Very good, sir,” came the voice of the butler, speak- 
ing haughtily. ‘‘ I will call the police.” 

“ Mother ! ” cried Barbara in a panic. “ He isn’t 
going to call the police.^ ” 

“ I warned you, Barbara, not to invite Mr. Winsor.” 

But it’s perfectly absurd. You’ll have the whole 
thing in the papers. Everybody’ll be talking about us. 
Do be reasonable for once ! ” 

Mrs. Collingwood did not immediately answer, but Bar- 
bara was in no doubt concerning what the answer would be. 
No Christian ever went to the lions with a more deter- 
mined expression than the expression on Mrs. Colling- 
wood’s face as she said, The time for compromise is past, 
Barbara. I do not intend to have that man at my table. 
I do not intend to connive in any way in his vulgar at- 
tempts to make love to you. That may not be reasonable, 
but it is the only attitude that I can take, to keep my 
conscience clear.” 

“ Oh, there’s that conscience of yours again ! ” cried 
Barbara. 


220 


BARBARA PICKS A HUSBAND 


“ Hadn’t you better arbitrate ? ” suggested Tom Para- 
way. 

“ Madam,” murmured Rising, the exemplary First But- 
ler, unexpectedly at her elbow, having noiselessly as- 
cended the stairs, “ shall I telephone for the police? ” 
His face was solemn, but his voice was comically matter of 
fact. He might have been saying, “ Shall I pass the 
vegetables again, madam ? ” “ The gentleman has ex- 

pressed his intention of staying,” he added. “ In fact, 
madam, I believe he has entered the drawing-room.” 

“ You may use the instrument in my sitting-room. Ris- 
ing,” said Mrs. Collingwood. 

“ No ! ” exclaimed Barbara. 

« Madam?” 

‘‘ If Rising telephones for the police,” Barbara cried in 
low, harsh tones, “ I’ll — I’ll run away — and marry 
Cleve Winsor. I will. Now take your choice.” 

“ I think, under the circumstances,” said the First But- 
ler elegantly, “ that I had better relieve you from this 
dilemma by resigning from your service. Moreover, I 
am averse to disturbances among gentlefolk.” 

“ Rising, that is perfectly absurd 1 ” cried Mrs. Col- 
lingwood. “ Don’t talk nonsense.” 

“ I am quite resolved, madam.” 

‘‘ Very well,” Mrs. Collingwood answered with dignity. 
“ Of course, you will get neither pay nor reference.” 

The First Butler drew himself up. “ As to pay, 
madam, I was paid on Friday and will be glad to sacrifice 
two days of honorable service for my freedom. As to a 
reference, madam, one from a house where such upheavals 
occur would scarcely be of value to me. I bid you good 
evening.” He bowed formally to Mrs. Collingwood, to 
Barbara, to Tom; then solemnly ascended the stairs. 

Tom chuckled suddenly, and before the indignant First 
Butler had gained the third floor, was sending a peal of 
hilarious laughter after him. It occurred to him that 


BARBARA PICKS A HUSBAND 


221 


Rising had saved the situation. But a glance at Barbara 
and Mrs. Collingwood convinced him that neither con- 
sidered the situation saved in the least. Their expres- 
sions were hard and resolved as before. His laughter 
subsided abruptly. He felt that he ought evidently to be 
ashamed of himself ; but he could not for the life of him 
regard this conflict in the corridor, one flight up, with 
complete seriousness. The defection of Rising had in- 
jected an ineradicable germ of humor into it. 

And the deadlock was broken after all. 

Barbara,” said Mrs. Collingwood, ‘‘ if you will go into 
that front room and behave yourself, I will go downstairs 
and talk to Mr. Winsor.” 

Barbara did not answer; without a word, she turned 
and re-entered the living-room. Tom followed her. She 
regarded him coldly. 

“ You’ll find magazines in the bookcase,” she said. 

“ Now, Bee,” pleaded Tom, “ don’t be uppish. You 
look just like Rising, the butler, when you talk like that.” 

Again, Barbara did not vouchsafe an answer, but en- 
tered her bedroom, humming, and closed the door behind 
her. She might have flung herself on the bed and gone 
instantly to sleep, but she did nothing of the sort. She 
opened the door to the corridor, listening for sounds of 
conflict from below. None reached her. Thereupon she 
walked dreamily about the room, still humming, and moved 
a knick-knack or a picture-frame an inch or two this way 
or that on the overcrowded mantelpiece. In the drawing- 
room below momentous issues were being decided, but she 
did not appear, even to herself, to care much which way 
the decision fell. Men were a nuisance, some unwearying 
imp in her mind reiterated like a cricket, and marriage was 
a nuisance, and life in general was a nuisance, and the only 
sensible thing Shakespeare or Longfellow or somebody 
ever said was that our silly life was rounded with a sleep. 
She dumped the drawer of her dressing-table on the plate- 


222 BARBARA PICKS A HUSBAND 

glass top, and began sorting the thousand things in it, as 
though her life depended on the effort. 

The minutes passed. She heard Rising, the Butler, 
descend the stairs with the heavy tread of indignation ; she 
heard Radcliffe, the Second Butler, ascend shortly after, 
and ten minutes later, descend with similar tread. A few 
minutes after that, she heard the excited gabble of Ali 
Baba, muttering French to himself. He knocked at her 
door to inform her that supper had been prepared a half 
hour or more and that both the butlers had suddenly de- 
parted, and what was a self-respecting chef to do with 
such deserting dogs ? 

Barbara hadn’t the least idea, and told him so. 

Ali Baba returned to his cave, still muttering; and 
Barbara continued to fold up ribbons with care ; and Tom 
Paraway, in the living-room, looked down upon the wet 
blackness of Fifty-seventh Street, watching a ’bus from 
Riverside lurch heavily on into the storm. 


XXIII 


C LEVE WINSOR, still in his overcoat, was slouch- 
ing in one of Mrs. CoUingwood’s best upholstered 
chairs when Barbara’s mother entered the drawing-room. 
In spite of the bigness of the issues about to be decided, 
she found herself noting that the overcoat was soaking 
wet. She had never cared two pins about that chair, or 
any piece of furniture before, but for some reason, the 
picture of that steaming fur-coat against the delicate 
pearl-gray satin irritated her beyond endurance. 

He rose to his feet slowly. “ How do you do ? ” he re- 
marked, with his arrogant smile. His hands were in his 
trouser pockets. He was the picture of imperturbable 
self-assurance. 

“ If you had the first elements of a gentleman,” cried 
Mrs. Collingwood, “ you would keep your wet clothes out 
of the drawing-room. If you wish me to talk to you, go 
and leave your coat in the hall.” 

Young Lochinvar had not expected any attack of that 
sort. He lifted his eyebrows and gave a whistle, faintly 
audible, swaying backwards and forwards on his heels. 
“ Oh ! ” he remarked, staring at Mrs. Collingwood with 
a cool who-are-you-anyway expression ; then turned 
abruptly and did as he was told. 

When he returned, he found Mrs. Collingwood in the 
identical spot where he had left her. He was about to 
make some flippant remark, to show how self-possessed he 
was, when she spoke, indicating the chair he had already 
ruined. “ Sit down,” she said. 

He sat down, a little angry. Mrs. Collingwood, quite 
calm now, sank down on a sofa eight or ten feet away. 

223 


224 < 


BARBARA PICKS A HUSBAND 


Neither spoke for half a minute or more — an inter- 
minable age it seemed. ‘‘ Mr. Winsor,” began Mrs. Col- 
lingwood at last. 

Cleve leaped to his feet and began pacing the floor. 
She waited for him to grow calm again. Suddenly he 
stood still in front of her and drew a package of cigarettes 
from his pocket. “ May I smoke ” 

‘‘ No,” she answered with quiet firmness. 

He stared at her, amazed. Indeed, Mrs. Collingwood 
was amazed at herself. She had never before refused a 
similar request. Cleve Winsor was getting on her nerves. 

‘‘ Oh, all right! ” he cried, thrusting the cigarettes back 
in his pocket, and beginning to pace the floor again. He 
left a path on the carpet, Mrs. Collingwood noticed. 

“ Please sit down, Mr. Winsor,” she said. 

He threw back his head, saying to himself that he was 
damned if he would. “ Sit down, Mr. Winsor,” she re- 
peated. 

He slumped into his chair. 

“ You cannot see Barbara, Mr. Winsor.” 

He straightened up promptly, recovering his control 
somewhat, now that the battle was finally on. “ I intend 
to see Barbara, Mrs. Collingwood.” 

Barbara’s mother did not enjoy fighting, and her face 
revealed her distaste for it. There was no suggestion of 
the exultation in the mere act of struggling that spirits 
far less indomitable than hers experience. There was no 
gleam in her eyes. Her skin was almost unbelievably 
gray. She looked sixty-five. The lines of her face seemed 
cast-iron. 

“ You shall not see Barbara under any circumstances,” 
said Mrs. Collingwood. 

That’s where you’re mistaken, Mrs. Collingwood.” 
His voice was sharp. “ Barbara and I are engaged. I 
have a right to see her.” 

“ I don’t believe you are engaged.” 


BARBARA PICKS A HUSBAND 


225 


“ Well, we’re as good as engaged.” 

“ It would not make any difference to me if you were 
engaged.” 

‘‘ I thought you didn’t believe in coercion,” drawled 
Cleve Winsor. 

‘‘ What I believe in or do not believe in, Mr. Winsor, 
is not the important point at the moment. I know that if 
Barbara married you she would be miserably unhappy, 
and I have made up my mind that she is not going to 
marry you.” 

He did not answer at once. His self-assurance wavered 
before her sincerity, wavered and gave way. He suddenly 
found himself respecting Mrs. Collingwood very much. 

“ Why do you say that.?^ ” he asked, in an altered voice. 

Mrs. Collingwood noted the change in his manner, and 
her heart was softened. She was very fond of boys and 
very sorry for them. She understood their difficulties ; 
viewing them more clearly, in fact, than she viewed Bar- 
bara’s — possibly because she was in no wise responsible 
for their solution. She had steered many an excellent but 
bewildered youth out of the rapids into smooth waters, 
generally matrimonial ; and in her eagerness to help almost 
forgot that she had come downstairs to show Cleve Winsor 
the door. The muddy track across her drawing-room 
carpet hardened her once more, for its own sake and for 
what it symbolized. 

‘‘ You know very well what you are,” she said coldly. 
‘‘ Do you think that any mother in her senses would be 
willing to have you marry her daughter except over her 
dead body ? 

“Oh, see here!” he protested. “You’re laying it on 
altogether too thick.” 

“ You see, Mr. Winsor, I know all about you.” 

He jumped to his feet. “ Who’s been telling lies now? ” 
he cried. “ If any blackguard has been gossiping to you, 
Mrs. Collingwood, I’ll shoot him. Do you hear? Or 


BARBARA PICKS A HUSBAND 


ne 

horsewhip him. I won’t be slandered. Perhaps, a man 
can safely slander another man in the East, but he can’t 
do it where I come from, Mrs. Collingwood. We’ve got 
red blood in our veins, where I come from ! ” 

Mrs. Collingwood listened to him, regarding him with a 
stony, expressionless face. His eloquence petered out 
before it. 

“ I saw Mrs. Hallam this morning,” said Mrs. Colling- 
w'ood quietly. 

He threw up his hands and sank into his chair. 

“ Now do you understand,” she went on, “ why I am not 
going to let you see Barbara again ” 

He jumped to his feet, strode to the window and back, 
and dropped again into the chair, now' holding his head in 
his hands, staring at the floor. “ I suppose so,” he mut- 
tered. “ I don’t suppose I ever could make you under- 
stand that what I may have done when I was eighteen or 
nineteen or twenty hasn’t anything to do with my making 
Barbara happy. I suppose, in your eyes, I sinned, and 
I’m everlastingly damned through life and eternity. I 
tell you, Mrs. Collingwood, that the man who gets his 
wild oats sow'ed early makes a better husband than your 
goody-goody kind who doesn’t discover the other sort of 
woman till he’s forty. You can take that from me! ” 

“ I’ve heard all that a great many times before, Mr. 
Winsor. And it’s one of the silliest excuses that man 
ever invented to cover his evil conscience.” 

“You’re talking pretty straight, aren’t you.?” 

“ If you’re a man you won’t want me to talk any way — 
but straight.” 

He looked up and gradually pulled himself together 
until he was no longer slouching. “ I am a man, Mrs. 
Collingwood.” He shrugged his shoulders. “ At least, I 
want to be. I — I haven’t been talked to — straight, like 
that, much. I’ve got the sweetest mother you ever saw, 
but I’ve rather bossed her, I guess, ever since I was small. 


BARBARA PICKS A HUSBAND 


227 


And my father — he’s been too busy to do more than 
curse me out at intervals, when I got fired from boarding- 
school and dropped from Yale, and overdrew my allowance 
and that sort of thing. I’m sorry if I was rude. I’ve 
sort of got into a habit of having my own way and walk- 
ing over people. I guess I deserve to get it hot.” 

His voice was low and penitent. There was no question 
of his sincerity. In Mrs. CoUingwood’s face the hard 
lines softened, for she loved boys, and the confidences she 
had received in the course of a quarter century had given 
her a deep understanding of their difficulties and their 
struggles. When she spoke, her voice was no less firm 
than before, but gentler. 

‘‘ You have behaved very badly.” 

I — I guess you’re right.” He paused ; then he 
added quite humbly, “ I apologize, Mrs. Collingwood.” 

“ Heaven ! ” she cried. “ It isn’t apologies I want.” 

He leaned forward eagerly. “ What is it you want ? 
Won’t you teU me what it is.^ ” 

Mrs. Collingwood looked into his eyes. ‘‘ Mr. Winsor, 
I want you to go away.” 

“ I am going. But I’ve got to have Barbara’s answer 
first.” 

“ I am not going to let you see her.” 

“ I’ve got to see her, Mrs. Collingwood.” 

“ You are not going to see Barbara.” 

He rose, not impetuously this time, but slowly and not 
without dignity. “ You’ve been nicer to me, I guess, than 
I deserve. I don’t want to make another scene. But 
heaven and hell are not going to keep me from seeing Bar- 
bara. I’m sorry, Mrs. Collingwood — ” 

“ Cleve, sit down ! ” 

She had never called him by his first name before, and 
she scarcely knew what possessed her to do it now. He 
was startled, puzzled ; he was more than a little afraid of 
her. He sat down. 


BARBARA PICKS A HUSBAND 


^28 


“ Cleve, do you love Barbara? ” 

He stared at her. “ Yes, Mrs. Collingwood,” he said 
in a voice unexpectedly boyish in its curious, shy sin- 
cerity. 

Are you sure? ” 

‘‘ Ever since I met her, I haven’t thought of another 
thing but her. Morning, noon and night. Why, when a 
letter came from her — ” 

‘‘ I think you’re just infatuated.” 

Oh, I don’t know what it is ! ” he burst out vehemently. 
“ I only know I can’t be without her. I’ve got to have 
her ! I want her and I’ve got to have her ! ” 

Mrs. Collingwood felt a shudder go through her, and 
drew a deep breath that hurt her about the region of the 
heart. 

“ Mr. Winsor,” she said at last, very softly, ‘‘ I try not 
to be hard, not to be puritanical in my judgments. I try 
to forgive, because I know how much there is in me which 
I want others to forgive. You say you love Barbara. 
You think you can’t live without her. I pity you from 
the bottom of my heart, but don’t you realize that you 
lost your right ever to claim Barbara, or any girl like 
Barbara, pure and clean ; don’t you realize that you lost 
your right ever to claim her, years ago, when you chose 
for your indulgence to claim that other kind of girl? I 
don’t want to seem hard. But Cleve, to me you are like a 
leper. I would as soon have Barbara marry a leper as 
marry you.” 

There was unmistakable conviction and intensity, 
though subdued, in her voice, which left him no reason to 
doubt that she meant exactly what she said. 

He gasped and actually seemed to grow a shade paler. 
Then the blood rose to his cheeks and his hair and to the 
very tips of his ears. He compressed his lips and folded 
his arms with an appearance of leisureliness, keeping his 
eyes fixed on hers, trying to brazen it out. But he failed, 


BARBARA PICKS A HUSBAND 


229 


after a minute he failed miserably. His eyes faltered, his 
arms dropped so that they hung down straight at his 
sides. Then suddenly he drew himself, with evident diffi- 
culty, to his feet and started to walk up and down. 

He stopped and pulled his cigarette case from his 
pocket. “ I’m going to smoke,” he said defiantly. 

“ Certainly, if you wish,” said Mrs. Collingwood gently. 

He lit his cigarette and blew out a long exhausting puff 
that seemed to draw the last bit of breath from his body. 
He gave an exclamation of distaste and flung the 
cigarette half way across the room, so that it dropped on 
the white marble hearth, where it continued for some time 
to send up a thin, undulating wisp. Nervously, he lighted 
another, and after a puff sent it flying after the first; 
then another. The hearth began to look like a miniature 
Indian encampment with the smoke rising through the 
tepee-tops. Mrs. Collingwood, sitting motionless, said to 
herself that it made the place look like a barroom. Per- 
haps the same thought occurred to Cleve Winsor, for he 
strode dreamily to the hearth and stepped on the three 
smoldering stumps. 

Cleve’s foot remained on the last of the three a long 
while, for he seemed to have forgotten time. He was 
staring at the cold, empty grate. When he turned, Mrs. 
Collingwood, looking up at him, saw with amazement that 
his lips were trembling and that there were tears in his 
eyes. 

He flung back his head and bit his lips to control them. 
But he did not succeed very well. A tear rolled down each 
cheek. He brushed them away. But behind them were 
too many to brush away. He leaned against the mantel, 
with shaking shoulders, weeping against his arm. 

“ O Cleve ! ” 

Mrs. Collingwood was at his side with her hand on his 
hand on the mantel-top. “ Poor boy, I wish I could help 
you.” 


230 


BARBARA PICKS A HUSBAND 


He controlled the tears with a sudden effort and turned 
to her. His face was like a scarred No-man’s-land, wasted 
and hopeless. “ I never knew what love was,” he said in 
low, uncertain tones. “ I thought that other thing was 
love. Nobody ever told me it wasn’t. And the straight 
girls never acted so awfully different from the ones who 
weren’t straight, so that any one would think that hitching 
up with one crowd made him — a leper to the other. Oh, 
I can see it now. I feel different toward Barbara than I 
ever felt toward any other girl, different than I felt even 
toward her, yesterday. She’s so quick and nervy and 
brave. I admire her just as much as I love her. And — 
I’m afraid of her, too. I’ve never been afraid of a girl 
before.” 

He said it all with a boyish directness that was very 
appealing. Mrs. Collingwood knew that she had never 
been so sorry for any one in her life. 

“ Do you think I am hard, Cleve.'^ Do you think I am 
unjust.^* ” 

He looked away. “ No,” he said very slowly. “ I 
guess you know what you’re doing. I’ve been wild all 
right, though I haven’t been any wilder than a lot of men 
I know that mothers haven’t objected to. Not objected 
so you’d notice it. I guess I thought it was just the nat- 
ural thing to be — speedy — for a while. I made up my 
mind I’d settle down when I’d had my fling, just as Dad 
did.” He turned abruptly. “ I’ll settle down now. I’ll 
buckle down to business. I’ll be — I’ll be good in every 
way. I’ll go on the water-wagon. I’ll never look at 
another — you know what I mean. Give me a chance, 
Mrs. Collingwood.” 

Her hand, which had lain on his, fell to her side and the 
lines of her face grew a shade sterner. “ It’s a terrible 
thing to say for any one who wants grace and mercy for 
herself,” she answered. “ But, Cleve, it’s too late.” She 
spoke the words reluctantly and painfully. 


BARBARA PICKS A HUSBAND 


231 


No, it isn’t ! ” he cried. “ Men have reformed before. 
Men are reforming every day. You haven’t a right to 
say it’s too late. You’re a good woman, but you’re not 
Jesus Christ. And Jesus Christ never said it was too 
late.” 

“ No. You can reform, and I’ll help you in every way 
in the world to go straight, Cleve, every way but one. 
You can be good and you can be happy if you make the 
effort, but you can’t be happy exactly in this one way in 
which you want to be happy. You’ve thrown away your 
chance of that. You know, you can’t eat your pie and 
have it, too. You can’t go crooked and expect the clean, 
sweet happiness that comes only to those who go straight. 
Can you? ” 

He gulped hard, staring again at the empty grate. “ I 
suppose not.” He was silent a long time; then he cried 
out in a low, husky voice, “ Why didn’t somebody tell me 
not to be a damned fool? ” 

Mrs. CoUingwood had no answer for that. 

He pulled himself together. ‘‘ I suppose Barbara told 
you. I’ve got to go at eight. Can I see Barbara before 

She looked into his eyes, and in her own was much 
deep pity, but no wavering at all. “ No, Cleve,” she said. 

“ You can stay in the room. It’s just — to see her — 
just once more — ” 

« No.” 

“ I’m doing as you say,” he pleaded. “ I’m going — for 
good. Won’t you — ” 

She shook her head. 

He was impelled to be brutal, but the look of spiritual 
mastery on her face checked him. He straightened up. 
He found he had an enormous respect for Mrs. Colling- 
wood. He reached out his hand to her. She took it and 
held it. Her eyes were brimming. 

“ I am very grateful to you, Cleve, for understanding. 


BARBARA PICKS A HUSBAND 


23a 

I think you are going to make a man of yourself. If I 
can help you, write me.” 

Impulsively, he bent down and kissed her. She took 
him in her arms and her tears fell on his hair. “ God be 
with you, Cleve,” she whispered. 

‘‘ I’m always going to think of you as a sort of wonder- 
ful extra mother,” he said. 

He went, closing the front door quietly behind him. 


XXIV 


B arbara, vaguely and absent-mindedly sorting in- 
numerable odds and ends from the dumped drawer 
on her bureau-top, heard as in a dream her mother come 
up the stairs, knock at her door, enter and tell her that 
Cleve Winsor had gone, and gone for always. The infor- 
mation made no impression on her. To her feverish eyes 
her mother seemed, not only in sympathy but in body, an 
immeasurable distance away, a funny animated doll, look- 
ing very serious and weepy away olf across a room that 
was fifteen feet wide and three hundred thousand feet long. 

She told her mother quite calmly that Cleve Winsor 
might go or stay like the wind where he listed, it made no 
difference to her. 

In a dream, she heard her mother, now suddenly seem- 
ing terribly close by, shout in her ear that Tom Faraway 
was still in the living-room. Mrs. Collingwood did not 
really shout. She spoke the words in the same quiet voice 
with which she had conveyed the previous information. 
But in Barbara’s head was Revolution and the relations 
between her senses and her brain were strained. 

“ It’s after dark,” she remarked calmly. “ He’d better 
go home before his mother begins to worry.” 

Mrsl Collingwood began to hum softly. Barbara shud- 
dered as though a steam calliope had unexpectedly burst 
into music behind her dressing-table mirror. Vaguely 
she realized, a moment later, that her mother had left the 
room; but she continued as before, sorting out ribbons 
and things, finding a faint and faraway interest in the 
fact that they were all an inch thick, which seemed unusual, 
for ribbons. 


233 


234 


BARBARA PICKS A HUSBAND 


In a dream, she heard her mother return and whisper 
from somewhere a mile away that Tom Paraway had gone. 

And then, for some reason or other, she burst into 
hysterical weeping. 

Mrs. Collingwood knelt down beside her with impetuous 
exclamations of affection. It seemed to Barbara that her 
mother’s arms were enormous, like the arms of a derrick, 
and she cowered and shrank. 

“ Go to bed, dear,” said Mrs. Collingwood tenderly. 
“ I’ll get you a cup of tea and a hot water-hag. You’re 
tired. You’ve been trying to do too much.” 

Something whispered to Barbara’s subconscious being 
somewhere that this suggestion was in the nature of a 
reproach. She stopped weeping as abruptly as she had 
begun, flung back her head, daubed her eyes with a lace 
collar which at the great distance from which she seemed 
to be viewing it looked like a handkerchief, and deliber- 
ately continued to sort out and fold ribbons, and ribbons, 
and ribbons. 

“ I’m perfectly all right,” she said to her mother sud- 
denly, after a five minutes’ silence. ‘‘ I wish you wouldn’t 
bother about me.” 

In a dream, Barbara heard her mother say something 
about supper, and disappear ; in a dream she saw her as 
magically reappear with a tray, apparently jumping out 
of the wall. She heard her say something about eating, 
and in a second it seemed to her that she was being wafted 
to sleep by intoxicating fumes of buttered toast. 

“ Thanks, Mother,” she said politely, ate the toast, 
drank the tea that came with it and quietly resumed her 
folding of ribbons. 

Her mother disappeared, appeared again and disap- 
peared with the inconsequential abruptness, it seemed to 
Barbara, of a jack-in-the-box. From afar off across 
space she heard something about church and about being 


BARBARA PICKS A HUSBAND 


235 


back at nine, and something else about Matilda, the up- 
stairs-girl, who would answer if she rang. 

“ Answer what.? ” asked Barbara. 

In a dream, she heard the front door shut and knew 
that her mother had flown off for an hour of spiritual 
recuperation. 

Barbara continued to fold ribbons ; she continued to 
fold them even after the stock in her drawer had all been 
folded once, carefully laying to one side all those she had 
worn on occasions when Tom Paraway had expressed ad- 
miration of her general appearance. She was dimly un- 
decided whether to burn them or to ask her mother to put 
them in her safe deposit box. 

In a dream, she heard the front door-bell ring and 
after a long time she saw the hatchet-face of Matilda, the 
Swede, approaching from the vast distance of her bed- 
room door. 

In a dream, she heard a name and felt her own hands, 
like enormous paws, rummaging about her hair, to 
straighten it out. In a dream, she walked downstairs and 
cheerfully greeted Chester Howell. 

She sank into the most comfortable chair in the draw- 
ing-room, wondering vaguely why there was an odor of 
cigarettes and steaming fur in the air. From afar off she 
saw Chester’s pleasant face and heard his pleasant gabble, 
aware that she was enjoying Chester as she had never 
enjoyed him before. He was such a dear boy, and he had 
such a wonderful mother and love was the greatest thing 
in the world after all, and she wanted a mother as well as 
a lover and oh, the peace, peace, peace of the dimlit room 
and Chester’s jolly talkativeness. She was on a ship at 
sea, rocking, rocking and drawing closer and closer to a 
wide open harbor of green shores — 

She began to talk herself. Chester said something 
about a partnership and with a feeling that she was walk- 


2S6 


BARBARA PICKS A HUSBAND 


ing along golden clouds to the golden gate of Paradise, 
she listened and answered. She felt herself laughing, and 
thought how wonderful that she was so happy. She was 
now doing all the talking, aware that she had never been 
so brilliant and profound before. 

Chester listened, thrilled at first by her evident willing- 
ness to take his love-making seriously, after so long a pe- 
riod of scoffing. It was all too wonderful to be true. 
“ Now,” he said to himself, now Mother’ll have to have 
respect for me.” But suddenly, it seemed to him, a chill 
struck his ardor dead. He sat back, silent, as minute by 
minute Disillusionment like a great gray cloud closed in on 
him from all about and snuffed out a romance. 

How could he ever have thought he loved this girl who 
sat opposite him in the shadow, chattering such unutter- 
able tommy rot He liked nonsense himself, but Barbara 
was talking drivel. Such platitudes, such cheap stuff, 
such soul-sickening puns ! And she evidently thought she 
was being funny. He clenched his fingers and grew cold 
and hot and cold again as Barbara began to tell jokes 
that were slightly risque, 

Chester thought of Ruth Torrey, that sweet and ex- 
quisite flower, and Barbara that moment seemed like an 
empty-headed chorus-girl beside her. 

Barbara gabbled on, in a delirious dream. At last, 
Chester, looking miserable and five years older, offered a 
poor excuse and went. Barbara watched him go, for 
what seemed hours, down the enormous stretch of space 
between the chair where she sat and the wide door that led 
to the hall. The harbor of the green shores vanished. 
She was afloat alone on a dismal, infinite ocean. 

She felt the ocean spinning round, but with a sudden 
effort she seemed to drag herself out of it and set her foot 
on solid earth. She felt as though some one had dashed 
cold water in her face, shivered, and slowly returned to 
full consciousness. 


BARBARA PICKS A HUSBAND 


237 


She wondered for a minute why she was where she was. 
She thought she had been up in her room. Then she be- 
gan to remember. Her mother had gone to church, Ches- 
ter had come to call. He had acted the way he always 
acted before he proposed to her. She had made up her 
mind to take him. She had really felt that she could be 
happy with him. Anyway, she would have a little peace. 
Then he had suddenly stood up and said good-by. It was 
very strange, for she had been unusually entertaining — ^ 

She felt forsaken. She wanted to cry, and somehow 
couldn’t. She dropped back in the arm-chair, her bosom 
sunk, her head falling limply forward. The flush of fever 
had left her cheeks and once more the spots of rouge 
gleamed wickedly like drops of fresh blood on parchment. 

One, two, three. 

A little while ago she had had three lovers. The first 
had rejected her; the second had allowed himself to be 
driven away by her mother ; the third had — had — had 
merely decided that he didn’t want her after all. 

For a long, slow hour, alone in the imposing drawing- 
room, with the faint odor of cold cigarette smoke, Bar- 
bara Collingwood, the spoiled little lady of orchids and 
roses and suitors without number, drank the cup of bitter- 
ness. 

Mrs. Collingwood did not return until ten o’clock, for 
numberless friends, after the service, wanted to know all 
about Barbara’s reported engagement to ‘‘ some interest- 
ing young man ” from the West. She denied the rumors 
so emphatically that some of her interrogators began to 
argue with her. All this consumed time. 

This was unfortunate, for Cleve Winsor, having missed 
his train and taken a drink or two to soothe his lacerated 
emotions, had been suddenly seized with the comforting 
conviction that he, a red-blooded young man, had been 
outrageously imposed upon by a mushy old woman.” 


^8 


BARBARA PICKS A HUSBAND 


He began to be very sorry for himself. He told himself 
that he was not half so bad as some men he knew who had 
been run after and snatched by mothers of girls exactly as 
nice as Barbara. It seemed to him that he was being 
unjustly discriminated against. How did Mrs. CoUing- 
wood know that he might not make Barbara happy? 
With a good wife to help him, he might become a very 
noble sort of person. Some of the saintliest saints had 
been much worse in their youth than he. One of them in 
particular. 

He ran over in his mind all the saints he had ever heard 
of — St. Paul, St. Louis, St. Jo, St. Augustine, St. Julien, 
St. Nicholas, St. Patrick, San Francisco — 

St. Francis! That was the fellow. St. Francis of 
Assisi. He had been a hell-dinger ” for fair, and now 
look what people thought of him ! 

He mentally kicked himself for not thinking of St. Fran- 
cis while he was arguing with Mrs. Collingwood. 

He thought that if he could have just ten minutes with 
Barbara’s mother, he might be able to win her over. A re- 
ligious woman like Mrs. Collingwood, he mused, would be 
impressed by the mention of St. Francis. 

There was no harm in another interview anyway. And 
there was just a chance that he might see Barbara. He 
determined that it would be weak and unmanly of him not 
to make one more attempt. 


XXV 


M atilda showed him directly into the drawing- 
room and before Barbara had recovered from the 
shock of suddenly seeing him standing, erect and impres- 
sive, in the doorWay, she was in his arms. 

From the depths of misery to the very pinnacles of bliss 
— aU in less than sixty seconds ! Surrender ! Surrender ! 
Every drop of blood in her veins seemed to be singing songs 
of jubilant surrender. The fight was done, there was to 
be no more struggling against the hordes of doubt and 
distrust and fear. A Knight in Armor had come and put 
them to flight for her, and she was his in glorious surren- 
der. She felt his arms firm about her, and relaxed more 
deeply into them for the sheer luxury of feeling his 
strength upholding her weakness. He kissed her until her 
face burned, but she surrendered her face to him as she 
would a flower. 

‘‘ You’re going with me,” he whispered in her ear. 
“ You’re going with me.” 

‘‘ I don’t care,” she murmured. “ I don’t care. Any- 
thing. Anything.” 

“ Is your mother upstairs ? ” His voice was a little 
hoarse. 

“ No,” she gasped. ‘‘ At church. Back — any min- 
ute.” 

“ Go upstairs. Get traveling clothes on.” 

Oh, no, Cleve, I can’t. Not this way. I can’t.” She 
choked. 

“ Don’t argue now. You’re going.” 

She threw her arms about his neck, gasping and pant- 
ing. ‘‘ I can’t. I mustn’t. To-morrow. Anywhere to- 

239 


240 


BARBARA PICKS A HUSBAND 


morrow. Really I will. Cross my heart. But not to- 
night. I’ll go to the end of the world to-morrow.” 
You’re going now.” 

“ Oh, Cleve, please.” 

‘‘ You’ll do as I tell you.” 

“ But suppose Mother comes ? ” 

I’ll tie her hand and foot if necessary.” 

‘‘ Oh, Cleve, you’re crazy. You don’t know what you’re 
saying. You eyes are perfectly wild.” 

He clutched her wrists. “ You’ve fooled with me long 
enough. You’ve played puppy dog with me long enough. 
Now I’m boss.” He kissed her with sudden real tender- 
ness, lightly on each eye. ‘‘ I won’t be a hard boss,” he 
whispered pleadingly. Not half so hard as I sound.” 

“Oh, Cleve, Cleve!” 

“ Go up and change your clothes.” 

She cast a frightened look at him. 

“ Quick ! ” he commanded. 

She freed herself, her old, independent individuality, 
which was not accustomed to taking orders from any one, 
reasserting itself. You can’t talk to me like that, 
Cleve,” she said in a low voice, breathing heavily. 

But the bully was uppermost in him at that moment. 
He clutched her in his arms, crying in her ears, “ I’ll 
talk to you as I please and you’ll do as I please. And 
you know it.” 

He was quite right. The moment’s rebellion gave way 
before a new, overwhelming impulse of surrender. 

“ The train leaves Jersey City at one-thirty. We’ll 
get married on the way.” 

“ But, Cleve, — the license.” 

« I’ve got it.” * 

Cleve ! How could you know — ? ” 

Never mind how I knew. I knew.” 

“ Oh, Cleve, are you sure — are you sure you’ve got it? ” 

“ I told you, didn’t I? ” 


BARBARA PICKS A HUSBAND 


241 


“ Yes — but — ” 

‘‘ Go upstairs and get ready.” 

She gave a frightened gasp. 

He took out his watch. “ I’ll give you just five minutes. 
Beat it.” 

She obeyed. 

Matilda, three flights up, was taking her pen in hand to 
indite an affectionate epistle to a Swedish lover, so she 
did not hear the front door close behind Miss Barbara and 
the Handsome Gentleman with the Loud Voice. 

The taxi shot east to Fifth Avenue, south to Forty- 
second Street and west to the Weehawken ferry. The 
streets were wet and shiny and vastly more beautiful than 
dry and sunlit streets ever are; but there were few folks 
abroad, either on foot or in motors, to enjoy the soft 
mauve-and-white magic of it. For it was Sunday night, 
and a wet and chilly night at that. 

Barbara shivered and Cleve impulsively pulled off his 
coat and threw it about her shoulders and drew her close 
to him to keep her warm. 

“ Oh, thanks ! ” she murmured. But won’t you 
catch cold.^* ” 

‘‘ Don’t you worry about me,” he answered cheerfully. 
‘‘ I’ll keep warm just looking at you.” 

She struggled a little. ‘‘ I’d rather not have it, ready.” 

“ You’ve got to have it.” 

She succumbed gratefully. They were both silent while 
the taxi dashed on, a half dozen blocks. 

Barbara leaned forward and a street light for an in- 
stant lit up her face. 

What’s the matter, Barbara.? ” he cried. You look 
— queer.” 

He heard her draw in her breath sharply and hold it. 
“ I wonder if I’m crazy — to do this ? ” 

He drew her impetuously to him. “You’re in love. 
That’s all, kiddo. You’re in love. If it’s crazy to be in 


242 


BARBARA PICKS A HUSBAND 


love, then we’re both crazy. And I’m crazier than you.” 

“ Oh, Cleve ! I hope you do love me.” 

‘‘ I do, I do, I do ! I really do ! ” 

She was silent a moment. ‘‘ I’m getting cold feet,” 
she whispered. 

He allayed her fears and comforted her with low words 
and pressure of arms. He knew the arts of persuasion 
and subtle excitement, and he practiced them all until she 
lay against his shoulder limp and exhausted. She felt her 
cheeks bum with a return of the fever, and for a minute 
he was frightened, for she became a little delirious, calling 
petulantly for her mother. The delirium passed and, 
somewhat chastened, he tried to crack a joke or two to 
quiet the emotions he had been harrowing. 

They crossed the ferry, and the sharp, salt air restored 
Barbara’s courage. There was now no turning back. 
She had left her home at ten o’clock at night to elope with 
Cleve Winsor, and she would carry the thing through. 
She told herself that she loved him, that she wanted to 
marry him; but even if she hadn’t loved him, even if she 
hadn’t wanted to marry him, now that she had made her 
decision there would be no turning back. She told her- 
self that over and over again, as though she wanted to 
hypnotize herself. 

She crouched in a corner of the car, while the ferryboat 
crawled across the foggy river. Mysterious horns sounded 
near and far. She glanced out of the window apprehen- 
sively and was startled as the fog ahead broke for an in- 
stant and revealed a black wall, looming horribly huge 
ahead. Lights twinkled coldly on its top, remote as stars ; 
then the fog covered the black enormity again and the 
fog-hom tooted and the boat crawled on. 

The taxi leaped over the rattling gang-plank to the 
pier, out of the dingy ferry-house, into a misty, terrifying 
world. Vaguely before them rose the gray Palisades. 
The taxi shot to the left, to the right, and then began 


BARBARA PICKS A HUSBAND 


24S 

slowly to climb the winding street to the town whose lights 
gleamed vaguely far above them. 

Cleve opened the door and called to the chauffeur: 

Stop at the first church you see ! ” 

Barbara drew in her breath sharply and held it. What 
a ghastly way of getting married. “ Stop at the first 
church you see ! ” The wedding she had planned for her- 
self to the last detail was to have been different. There 
was to have been a church in it, but the church was to 
have been full of people, and there were to have been 
bridesmaids and ushers and a maid of honor and flowers 
and ribbons and — 

The car climbed up and up, reached the summit at last 
and stopped. The chauffeur was asking the way to the 
nearest church. The man he had accosted seemed doubt- 
ful, but he thought there was a church or two on Park 
Avenue. The clutch slid raspingly into the gears and the 
car moved on, slowed down, seemed to hesitate and swung 
to the left. 

Again the car stopped. A light shone on a yellow brick 
church on the east side of the street. From her place in 
the car Barbara read the gOt lettering on the shield beside 
the portal : “ German Evangelical Lutheran Church.” 

I’m not Lutheran,” she cried, and there seemed a note 
of relief in her voice. ‘‘ I’m Episcopalian. Try to find 
an Episcopalian church. Please, Cleve.” 

Cleve gave the directions and once more the car dashed 
off into the night. A few blocks south it drew up 
abruptly at the right hand curb. The chauffeur leaned 
out and opened the door. “ I guess this fits the require- 
ments,” he remarked cheerfully. 

There was a signboard near the street, revealing to 
passersby the interesting information that the little 
brown church with the attractive gable roof, half hidden 
behind a grove of youngish trees, offered an opportunity 
to worship God in the manner approved by Barbara Col- 


BARBARA PICKS A HUSBAND 


^44 

lingwood’s hitherto not oversensitive religious instincts. 

Cleve Winsor bounded out of the car and disappeared in 
what appeared to be the parsonage. Barbara felt her 
heart pounding. 

Cleve Winsor was admitted to the parsonage, and re- 
mained, it seemed to Barbara, sitting apprehensively on 
the edge of the seat, for hours. When the door opened 
again, she heard Cleve speak a short Good night ” that 
made her sink back in unutterable relief. Cleve was 
cursing under his breath when he reached the taxi. 

‘‘ The damn prig, the damn, low-minded hypocrite ! If 
he hadn’t been so damn small I’d have hit him, the — ” 

“ Cleve, please ! ” 

“ Oh, I know, I know ! ” he cried impatiently. Then 
he turned to the chauffeur. “ Go on, damn it, and find a 
man, you hear? Not a whimpering prig, but a man! ” 

Barbara’s eyes grew large. The car dashed south 
again. “ The .fool had moral objections to marrying peo- 
ple in a hurry,” Cleve explained. 

“ Are you sure the license was all right? ” Barbara in- 
quired timidly. 

“ Of course it was all right. I told you it was all 
right.” 

A cold chill seemed to run through her. She shuddered 
and shrank back into her corner of the cab, wanting noth- 
ing so much as to curl up and die. Her ability to strike 
back was gone. She felt utterly helpless. 

“ I’m sorry I lost my temper,” said Cleve. 

I’m tired, I’m so tired,” she whispered. “ I wish 
you’d take me home.” 

He seized her hand and squeezed it. She felt suddenly 
like a prisoner. 

The car had swung to the left and was running down 
grade through a park, with the Palisades towering on one 
side, and on the other, far below, sheds and railroad yards, 
the misty river, and beyond, the vague luminous shape of 


BARBARA PICKS A HUSBAND 


245 


the great city. They coasted down a long grade, turned 
to the left and then to the right, again to the left, once 
more to the right, and bumped into a park. The car 
stopped. 

Cleve opened the door. Do you know what you’re 
trying to do ? ” he inquired irritably. 

How do you expect me to know where to find exactly 
the kind of a parson you and your girl want? ” the driver 
retorted. The trip was beginning to get on everybody’s 
nerves. 

‘‘ Where are we? ” 

« Hoboken.” 

“ Heavens ! ” cried Barbara. That name seemed to take 
the last flicker of glamor from her elopement. 

‘‘ Stop at a telephone,” Cleve ordered. 

The driver backed and turned. In a minute their nos- 
trils caught once more the salt smell of the sea. They 
were on the waterfront. The car stopped at a dingy drug- 
store, flanked by saloons. Opposite was a high open fence 
and beyond, dimly lighted, an endless line of warehouses 
and covered piers. They heard boat whistles in the dis- 
tance, as from another world. 

Cleve dashed for the door of the apothecary’s shop. It 
was locked. He rattled it. No answer. He rattled it 
again, louder, and at last a portly figure in a mottled 
dressing-gown appeared out of the dim rear and turned 
the key. 

I want to telephone,” said Cleve sharply. 

Vat you say ! ” cried in wrath the portly person, evi- 
dently German. ‘‘You shake my door so, you wake me 
out of my good sleep so I almost t’ink somebody pretty 
near lie in dying shure, chust to use my telephone. You go 
to de devil ! ” 

He tried to slam the door, but Cleve’s foot was in the 
way. “ I’ll buy your whole damn shop,” cried Young 
Lochinvar. “ But I’ve got to telephone.” He thrust a 


me 


BARBARA PICKS A HUSBAND 


biU into the man’s hands and darted for the telephone- 
booth. “ Turn up your lights ! I can’t see this fine print 
in the dark.” 

The bewildered apothecary indignantly gave him back 
his bill, and, to Cleve’s own amazement, promptly pro- 
ceeded to obey orders. No question, Cleve Winsor had a 
way with him, a persuasive way ; in his brutal fashion he 
charmed even while he bullied. 

He remained in the telephone booth for twenty min- 
utes, and for twenty minutes Barbara waited, shiver- 
ing, but beyond the point of resistance or even protest. 
She was going “ to carry this thing through.” There 
seemed to her, indeed, no alternative. She was even now 
hopelessly compromised. Even if an alternative had ap- 
peared to her, she would scarcely at that moment have had 
the energy to take it. There was no more fight in her. 
After all, she said to herself, it was good to have peace, 
even though it were the peace of abject surrender. 

But she did not say that to herself more than once, 
for it brought a sudden memory of the little old lady of 
Merlin Road, saying “Never surrender! You will never 
in the world find happiness by surrender. Eight, fight and 
then fight ! Head high, and never surrender ! ” 

She tried to put the thought of her grandmother away 
from her. This was no time to be thinking of grand- 
mothers. But the old lady’s voice rang in her ears and 
sent a spark along her sluggish blood. 

Cleve returned to her at last. “ The parsons in this 
town are all crazy,” he muttered, standing by the taxi- 
door. “ But I’ve got the address of a Magistrate.” He 
gave it to the driver and jumped into the car again. The 
driver called for directions to the German apothecary, 
who was standing in silent perplexity and disapproval in 
the doorway, received them and was off again, along the 
riverfront a block, then to the right and into the heart of 
the town. 


BARBARA PICKS A HUSBAND 


247 


The house of the Magistrate was a good mile west, and 
when they reached it, they found that the Magistrate was 
not at home. He might be found at the Cafe Barbarossa, 
the shrill voice that answered their inquiries from an 
upper window suggested. “ And if ye send him home, 
ye’ll be doin’ him a good service an’ me, too.” 

The Cafe Barbarossa, they found, was on the water- 
front, so back to the waterfront they returned. The air 
was damp and chilled Barbara to the marrow. She felt as 
though she were slowly coagulating. Her feelings, it 
seemed to her had been frozen stiff long ago. 

They found the Magistrate at last. In a room, thick 
with tobacco smoke, behind the bar-room, Cleve found him 
playing poker with a stout, red-faced Irish police captain 
and an officer of one of the blockaded German liners. 
The Magistrate himself was stout and Irish, and he was 
slightly drunk. 

Cleve took him aside, pressed a roll of bills into his hand 
and told him what he wanted. The man winked. He had 
large round eyes and lids that met in the middle like an 
owl’s. 

“ Shure, come on,” he shouted. “ Bring in the lady. 
Family entrance on the right.” 

Cleve returned to the taxi. “ It’s all right. Come on 
in.” 

Barbara half rose and fell back in her seat. “ Cleve,” 
she cried in low, breathless, uncertain tones, “I — I — I 
can’t do it, Cleve. I can’t. Take me home, Cleve.” 

He did not bully her this time. “ Yes, you can do it, 
Barbara,” he whispered. I know it’s hard, but I love 
you and you love me — ” 

“I — want — to — go — home.” 

No ! ” he cried softly but with an intensity that sud- 
denly set her teeth chattering. ‘‘ You’re mine! And I’m 
not going to let you get away from me. Not now and 
never ! ” 


BARBARA PICKS A HUSBAND 


248 

She began to cry. He took her in his arms and once 
more the flame seemed to flare up in her, and she let him 
lead her. by the hand through a black door, up a dingy 
flight of stairs lit by a smoky lamp into a dingy room. 
The Magistrate was waiting, with the police captain and 
the ship’s officer as witnesses. There was a smell of stale 
beer and cheap tobacco in the air. 

And there, without more ado, Cleve Winsor and Bar- 
bara CoUingwood were married. 


XXVI 


C LEVE bent over to kiss her. But she could not bear 
a kiss from him at that moment, and she flung back 
her head, so that her eyes fell unexpectedly on the Magis- 
trate. 

He was at that moment giving a slow, expressive, leering 
wink. 

For an instant she felt as though she would burn up for 
shame and loathing; then, still flushing, she allowed Cleve 
to kiss her after all. Her voice when she spoke was gayer 
than it had been for hours. “ Say, Cleve! I’m crazy to 
tell everybody about it. I never knew anything so wildly 
romantic, did you? ” 

He laughed happily, and they descended the stairs, hand 
in hand. She was thinking, ‘‘ When he’s buying the 
tickets for the train and his back is turned — ” 

At the foot of the stairs the Magistrate’s voice halted 
them. Say, you ! One minute ! ” he called. 

He descended heavily and they waited. He drew Cleve 
aside. Barbara heard angry whispers and she raised her 
head quickly, alert as a doe. ‘‘ I paid you fifty dollars ! ” 
she heard Cleve say. 

‘‘ Well, if you know what’s good for you, you’ll come 
across with fifty more I ” 

Cleve answered hotly. She watched him with straining 
eyes. His attention was on the Magistrate. She took a 
sudden breath and, silent as a cat, slipped out of the door, 
dashed across the sidewalk and into the taxi. 

‘‘ Take me home, take me home ! ” she cried. 

Jesus Christ ! ” muttered the driver and was off like 
mad toward the Hoboken ferry. 

249 


250 


BARBARA PICKS A HUSBAND 


Barbara knelt on the seat and peered out through the 
little rear window of the cab. She saw Cleve running out 
of the house. She heard him shout. 

There was no boat in the slip. There would be no boat 
for half an hour. Barbara’s teeth were chattering. 
“ God, God, dear God, help me ! ” she muttered. 

“ Say ! ” cried the driver, peering in at her. “ What’s 
he tryin’ to put over — a kidnapping game ? ” 

“No — yes — I don’t know — I only want to get 
home.” 

He backed the car, turned sharply and shot up a dark 
street under the elevated. Six or eight blocks west, he 
turned again, speeding north. On the long up-grade 
they had coasted down an hour before, his engine stopped 
dead. 

He did not have to investigate long. “ What do you 
know ? ” he said with unmistakable regret, opening the taxi 
door, “ no more gas.” 

Barbara leaped out. “ I’ll take a trolley.” 

“ That’s all right, but who’s goin’ to pay me ? ” he in- 
quired with almost pathetic helplessness. “ The meter 
says thirty-eight dollars. See for yourself. I want you 
to get away but — ” 

Barbara gave him her name and address. The driver 
was rueful but resigned. From the distance, to the south, 
a trolley came clanging. Barbara clambered aboard the 
empty trolley car, discovered that she did not have a cent 
of money with her, and, after an argument, sold the con- 
ductor a pearl brooch for a dollar. 

And even then, she had to pull the bell-cord suddenly 
and leap from the car a mile or so from the Weehawken 
ferry, since the conductor insisted on taking seriously 
the daubs of rouge on her lips and cheeks. 

It was one o’clock when she reached the ferry-house, 
footsore and weary beyond words. Fortune was kind 


BARBARA PICKS A HUSBAND 


^51 


here, for there was a boat in the slip, and she had scarcely 
set her foot on it before it moved out toward the New 
York shore. The fog was heavy and for all her weariness, 
she stood in the bow glad to have the damp air blow in 
her face. Staring afar off, she dreamily rubbed the rouge 
from her face. 

Gradually, in spite of her physical exhaustion, in spite 
of the fever which seemed to scorch her at intervals like 
gusts from a furnace door, her cool and steady mind as- 
serted itself. She had imagined that she was at the end of 
her strength after her mad rush to Fordham and Mrs. 
Hallam’s and home again ; but now, after a series of adven- 
tures wild enough to satisfy a movie heroine, she felt sud- 
denly restored, quite cool and able to reason. 

She had married Cleve Winsor. She gave a gasp as she 
thought of it and had to clench her fists to keep herself 
from sobbing. She did not love Cleve Winsor. Oh, what 
had ever made her imagine that she did.? She saw again 
the whole terrible ceremony in the dingy room over the 
bar-room, the leering lips of the half-drunken Magistrate 
— and that slow, salacious wink. 

The marriage must be annulled, or if that was impos- 
sible, she must get a divorce. She moaned faintly at the 
ghastly absurdity of it all. She must see a lawyer at once. 
Before the night was done she must see a lawyer and give 
him a record of every minute of her time since ten o’clock 
last evening. He must be able to prove in court beyond 
question that she had never lived with the man she had 
married. 

What lawyer.? 

She leaped on the landing-bridge at Forty-second Street 
before the gears of the adjustment-wheels had fairly 
ceased to clank. There was a taxi outside the ferry-house. 
She forgot for the moment that she had only ninety cents 
in her pocket and told him to rush for all that was in him 
to a certain number on Riverside Drive. 


252 


BARBARA PICKS A HUSBAND 


The house of the Paraways was dark, but the frantic 
pushing of the bell was not left long unanswered. Mr. 
Paraway himself appeared in a heavy dressing-gown that 
was not at all unbecoming. 

If he was surprised to see Barbara Collingwood stand- 
ing outside his front door at one-thirty in the morning, 
he did not show it. “ Come in, Barbara,” he said quietly. 

We have all been worrying about you. Does your 
mother know you were coming here? ” 

No,” she answered breathlessly. ‘‘ She — she doesn’t 
know where I am.” 

‘‘ Perhaps I had better telephone her at once. She was 
somewhat upset. She will be relieved. The telephone is 
in my wife’s sitting-room. Won’t you come up? ” 

Barbara followed him. At the top of the stairs they 
were met by Mrs. Paraway in the most delicate of Japanese 
kimonos. Her hair was loose. She had rather fine hair, 
chestnut brown, streaked with gray, wavy and full. It 
framed the thin, delicate face very well. 

Mr. Paraway found that he could not get Mrs. Colling- 
wood’s number. The wire was busy, he was told. It had 
been busy for twenty minutes or more. His wife mean- 
while made no attempt to entertain her nocturnal caller. 
She felt possibly a little embarrassed; possibly she was 
conscious of the presence of great issues which made the 
kind of conversation which came most naturally to her 
tongue seem even to her a little cheap. 

“ You’re shivering,” she remarked instead. “ Won’t 
you have a cup of something warm? Or a toddy? I al- 
ways declare, you know, that a hot toddy is not a drink 
but a benediction and is consequently not recorded in 
heaven.” 

Barbara refused the toddy and compromised on hot 
lemonade, figuring that a hot lemonade would take Mrs. 
Paraway at least to the pantry, one floor below, if not to 
the kitchen. 


BARBARA PICKS A HUSBAND 


^53 


Her calculations proved correct. Mrs. Parawaj de- 
parted on her errand of mercy. Mr. Paraway closed the 
door behind her. 

“ Whom did you wish to see here, Barbara.'^ ” he asked 
in a voice which he would have called judicial but any 
impartial critic would have called frigid. “ Not Tom, I 
suppose ? ” 

“ Of course not.” 

Mr. Paraway liked the firm way in which she spoke the 
words. 

‘‘ You have me puzzled.” 

I came to see you, Mr. Paraway.” 

“ Won’t you please teU me.? ” 

She rose from the deep chair in which she had been sit- 
ting and walked to the window. Abruptly, she turned. 

I want your help. I — I have just been married to Mr. 
Winsor.” 

“ You have just been — married.? ” 

‘‘ Yes. Over a saloon in Hoboken, As soon as it was 
over, I — I knew it was a ghastly mistake. When Mr. 
Winsor’s back was turned I ran away.” 

“I see, I see! You have had a rather terrible expe- 
rience.” He paused. Barbara was standing near the 
window. Her eyes were unnaturally bright and a little 
defiant ; her cheeks, as a rule so rosy — either by nature or 
by artifice — were quite pale ; her mouth and chin were set 
firm. “ She is a little tigress at bay,” said Mr. Paraway 
to himself ; and decided that there was possibly more to 
Barbara Collingwood than he had supposed. 

‘‘ Why did you come to me instead of going home.? ” 
he asked aloud. 

“ I want advice.” 

Legal advice.? ” 

« Yes.” 

“ But I am not a divorce lawyer, Barbara.” 

“ There was another reason.” 


254 BARBARA PICKS A HUSBAND 

‘‘ I thought there must be,” he said quietly. 

She hesitated. “I — I knew it might be very important 
for me to be able to prove that — that I had left Mr. 
Winsor immediately, immediately — after our marriage.” 

Mr. Paraway gave her a keen glance. It was clever 
of you, in your natural excitement under the circum- 
stances, to think of that. But, may I nevertheless ask 
why didn’t you go home? I should have thought that 
naturally you would have gone home and then sent for, 
well, Tom, for instance. You have sent for Tom on other 
occasions.” His voice was not without a touch of irony. 

“ I thought of that. But it occurred to me that 
Mother’s evidence or — Tom’s, might be considered — 
prejudiced. Any judge would realize that any one who 
cared for me would, under the circumstances, swear to 
anything in order to prove that the marriage — could be 
annulled.” 

Mr. Paraway raised his eyebrows. You think any 
one would perjure himself — under the circumstances?” 

‘‘Of course. It would be just — priggish not to.” 

“ I see, I see ! ” murmured Mr. Paraway, conscious that 
he was learning many things. “ But, Barbara, surely I 
am not the only man you know whom a judge would con- 
sider incorruptible ? ” 

“ I wasn’t thinking of that.” 

“ Why, then, did you come to me? ” 

“ I knew that you disliked me. I knew that there could 
be no trouble at all proving that. I suppose I could even 
prove that you and Mrs. Paraway wanted me to marry — 
Mr. Winsor. Naturally your evidence would count very 
much.” 

She was standing very erect, with one hand clutching 
the heavy hangings at the window. A flush had crept into 
her face again. Mr. Paraway began to wish that he were 
wearing day-clothes. A dressing-gown, even the most dis- 
creet and flowing, did put one at a disadvantage. 


BARBARA PICKS A HUSBAND 


255 


‘‘ Your father was an admirable lawyer,” he remarked 
irrelevantly. 

Barbara pretended not to hear that observation. If 
you’ve got a pencil and paper,” she said, ‘‘I’ll tell you 
exactly where I was every minute between the time I left 
home and the time I arrived at this house.” 

He reached across the table. “ I am ready, Barbara.” 

She told her story quickly and nervously but in full 
detail. In the middle of it, the hot lemonade arrived, 
escorted by Mrs. Paraway. 

Barbara lifted her head. “ I wonder if you’d mind — 
letting me talk alone — with Mr. Paraway ? ” she asked 
with the sweetest of smiles. 

Mrs. Par away ’s eyebrows went up. 

“ I think Barbara may speak with a little less con- 
straint,” Mr. Paraway suggested. 

Mrs. Paraway smiled her curious, quizzical, twisted 
smile, shrugged her shoulders ever so slightly and disap- 
peared in the direction of her bedroom, closing the inter- 
vening door behind her. 

Barbara was conscious of a certain remote feeling of 
satisfied revenge. 

“ Continue, if you please,” said Mr. Paraway. 

Barbara finished her narrative. 

“Do you know the name of the Magistrate?” Mr. 
Paraway interposed. 

“ I think it was Callahan.” 

“ I don’t suppose you noticed the number of the taxi? ” 

“ No. But the driver will be coming to the house for 
his money.” 

“ Good.” 

Barbara’s hand slowly slid down the curtain to her 
side, and very slowly she crossed the room. “ Do you 
think you will be able to get me free? ” 

He looked at her without stirring in his chair. “ You 
are asking a great deal of me, Barbara. You are a clear- 


256 


BARBARA PICKS A HUSBAND 


headed girl. You must know very well that I am not 
eager to see you — free again ” 

“ I don’t think you quite mean all you seem to mean ” 
she answered slowly, after a pause. ‘‘ You wouldn’t really 
want me to be miserable with — Mr. Winsor. I don’t 
think you would want me to live with him — against my 
will.” 

“ You have been a very foolish young woman.” 

“ You don’t know what I’ve been up against.” Her 
voice broke a little. 

There was a long silence between them. I think 
now,” said Mr. Faraway, ‘‘ you had better go home.” 
Then, after a moment, he added, ‘‘ Tom, by the way, is 
out in the byways and hedges looking for you. Your 
mother telephoned him at the same time she telephoned 
the police.” 

“ The police ! Heavens 1 ” Barbara sank into a chair. 

Is your taxi waiting? ” 

Yes,” she murmured breathlessly. 

If you will wait a minute, I will dress and take you 
home. Perhaps you would like to telephone your 
mother? ” 

She did not answer. Mr. Paraway disappeared in the 
inner room. Barbara had to force herself by sheer will- 
power to overcome her dread of the reproach she knew 
would come to her over the wire that bound the house on 
Riverside Drive to the house on Fifty-seventh Street. She 
called her mother’s number. 

Silence. Then the voice of the operator sounding some- 
what discouraged, ‘‘ Wire’s busy.” 

Are you sure ? ” 

I don’t know what’s the matter with that nmnber. 
It’s been busy for almost an hour. The receiver is off 
the hook anyway.” 

Barbara felt a sudden cold chill of unreasoning appre- 
hension. 


XXVII 


B arbara ran up the steps she had descended (with 
Cleve Winsor’s hand at her elbow) some four and a 
half hours previous. After a long wait, Matilda opened 
the door. 

She turned and called to Mr. Faraway, waiting in the 
taxi below. “ It’s all right. Thank you for bringing 
me home. Good night.” Her voice was tremulous with 
fear of the scene ” she knew awaited her with her mother. 
She turned again slowly, reluctant to enter the house. 
For a second she almost wished she had stayed with Win- 
sor and faced what there was to face. She would now, she 
told herself, be speeding westward — 

She flung back her head in the way she had when there 
was a fight ahead, and entered the house. “ Where’s 
Mother? ” she asked sharply. 

Her mother, Matilda told her, had gone to bed. Ma- 
tilda herself was full of yawns, having, Barbara surmised, 
been allowed to sleep through whatever excitement Bar- 
bara’s departure had occasioned. It was like her mother, 
in difficult hours not to want to be bothered with an 
inquisitive servant. 

It was not like her mother, however, to go to bed on such 
occasions. She had evidently dropped asleep, watching 
for her. Barbara felt a twinge of regret. 

She snapped out the hall light and ascended the stairs, 
conscious suddenly of her own physical exhaustion. And 
there was still ahead of her a scene ” with her mother. 
Lord ! ” she murmured half aloud. ‘‘ Lord, I can’t go 
257 


258 


BARBARA PICKS A HUSBAND 


through a talkfest. I can’t. I simply can’t.” She laid 
her hand across her forehead and leaned for an instant 
against the wall. 

The door of her own room was open and tempted her to 
enter and throw herself on the bed if only for a minute 
before waking her mother. She resisted. She was fully 
aware that after so mad an escapade, she owed her mother 
— to put it mildly — the amenity of a how-do-you-do. 
That was not duty, that was plain good sportsmanship: 
you grin when you are licked whether you enjoy grinning 
under those circumstances or not, and you shake hands 
with your opponent. If he wants to crow over you, you 
bear that too. You merely resolve to fight a little more 
intelligently next time. 

It was in that spirit that her hand fell on the knob of 
her mother’s door and after a last instant of hesitation, 
turned it. There was light in the room. She pushed 
open the door. Her mother was not on the patent Daven- 
port which was her bed. Barbara had scarce expected 
she would be. 

She entered the room, gasped and gave a frightened cry. 

Mrs. Collingwood was lying, huddled, face upward, on 
the floor beside the little table on which the telephone 
instrument always stood. She was holding the transmit- 
ter tightly in her right hand; the receiver lay on her 
breast. 

No wonder Central had been unsuccessful in ringing 
her number. 

Barbara stared, gasping and whimpering, unable to 
move. ‘‘ Mother ! ” she whispered. ‘‘ Mother ! ” She 
lurched forward to secure the support of a chair-back; 
then drew herself slowly from one piece of furniture to 
another toward the place where her mother lay. At last 
she stood beside her, afraid to trust herself yet to bend 
down, for her head was swimming. She clenched her 
fists and breathed deeply in and out. 


BARBARA PICKS A HUSBAND 


259 


Her eye caught the telephone instrument and with the 
knowledge of an obvious course of action came a sudden 
influx of strength. 

The hand that clutched the transmitter would not let 
it go, Barbara moaned at the horror of that cold, white 
hand and knelt on the floor. For a while it seemed she 
would never find voice to speak. 

“ Central ! ” she called frantically at last. 

No one answered. 

Again and again she called. Then the realization over- 
came her that Central, having decided that the receiver 
was off the hook for the night, had evidently decided to 
pay no more attention to the refractory wire. 

‘‘ Matilda 1 ” she called. 

Matilda did not answer, though Barbara called again 
and again. 

Her own strength seemed to grow as she realized that she 
was to have no help. She tore off her hat and flung it on 
the floor; she tore off her fur-coat, her jacket, her gloves. 
Then swiftly and with an expertness which would have 
surprised even her if she had been conscious of it, she 
straightened out her mother’s huddled form, thrust a pil- 
low under her head, loosened her waist. 

“ It’s her heart 1 ” she said half aloud. “ She knew it 
was acting queer. And I wouldn’t believe it.” She sud- 
denly found herself weeping. Oh, idiot, idiot, idiot ! ” 
she moaned. “ Oh, Mother, what a fool I was ! ” 

She laid her hand on her mother’s heart. There was a 
barely perceptible, irregular palpitation. 

She ran for water, for spirits of ammonia. Ten min- 
utes later it seemed to her that the tragic lines of suffer- 
ing in her mother’s face had softened a little. The fingers 
that clutched the transmitter relaxed and lay limp be- 
side it. 

Barbara picked up the instrument, calling ‘‘ Central ! 
Central ! ” as though she expected her voice to carry of 


260 BARBARA PICKS A HUSBAND 

itself to the vague Somewhere that held the unregarding 
operator. 

Help came from an unexpected quarter, for Matilda, a 
good quarter hour after she had been summoned, ap- 
peared. “ You call me. Miss Barbara? she asked stol- 
idly, and screamed as she suddenly discovered the pale 
form beside which Barbara was kneeling. She screamed 
three times at the top of her lungs ; then suddenly was the 
stolid Matilda again, waiting for orders. Barbara smiled 
in spite of everything at the absurdity of the “ upstairs 
girl’s ” mechanical expression of horror ; and sent her fly- 
ing for a doctor. 

Ten minutes passed. Then she heard the front door 
close behind the not very brainy but kind-hearted Matilda. 
With a shudder she realized that she was now alone in the 
house, alone with innumerable clocks and her mother, un- 
conscious, barely alive, stretched on the floor, infinitely 
more full of reproach in her silence than she had ever been 
in her speech. Barbara rubbed her hands and her feet, 
feeling abjectly, pitifully humble and ashamed and eager 
to atone. 

The minutes followed one another slowly, and with 
countless terrifying creakings, and inexplicable rattlings 
of distant doors. Barbara heard her mother sigh ever so 
faintly. 

“ Mother ! ” she cried softly. 

There was no answer ; and Barbara continued her vigil, 
wondering when the doctor would come, and, kneeling there 
beside her mother, beginning to understand a great many 
things which Mrs. Collingwood, in health and vigor, had 
never been able to make clear. 

She heard a motor come down the street and stop in 
front of the house. An instant later, the door-bell rang. 
The doctor had come sooner than Barbara had allowed 
herself to hope was possible. She ran down the stairs and 
flung open the door. 


BARBARA PICKS A HUSBAND ^61 

But it was not the doctor who entered. It was Cleve 
Winsor. 

She screamed and instinctively thrust her open hands in 
his face. He was taken by surprise and for half a minute 
blinded by her finger-nails striking his eyes. She leapt for 
the stairs, exclaiming in despair at her narrow skirts. 
She reached her mother’s room in time to slam the door 
in his face, lock it, and leap to the folding door which led 
to her own room. The door stuck ; then suddenly yielded, 
just in time. 

He hammered on the door. Open up ! ” She did not 
answer. “ I’ll break the door ! ” 

She had fled to the farthest corner of the room, but now 
she returned quickly and courageously to the door she had 
last closed. He was thumping on it with both fists. 

Cleve,” she called, trying to keep her voice steady, 
“ don’t do that. Please. Mother is ill. Mother is ter- 
ribly ill.” 

“ I don’t believe it ! ” he bellowed. 

‘‘ It’s true, Cleve. Really. She’s — she’s uncon- 
scious.” 

“ Let me see for myself.” 

I can’t, Cleve.” 

I’ll break open the door ! ” 

She did not answer. 

But Young Lochinvar was evidently not yet ready for 
violent methods. “ What did you mean by running away 
the way you did.^^ ” 

She hesitated. 

“ Can’t you say something? ” he shouted. 

I ran away because I suddenly knew I’d — made — a 
terrible mistake.” 

What do you think you’re going to do about it? ” 

Please go away, Cleve. I’ve got to tend to Mother. 
Please.” 

“ You can’t get out of it.” 


26 ^ 


BARBARA PICKS A HUSBAND 


‘‘ Please don’t shout that way. If Mother wakes up 
it’ll frighten her.” 

He banged the panels of the door. Let me in 1 ” 

‘‘ I won’t ! ” 

‘‘ You haven’t a right to keep me out. I’m your hus- 
band.” 

A clock struck three somewhere. 

I’U never let you in ! ” she cried with a sudden sob. 

The finality of the words infuriated him. He flung 
his shoulder against the door. A panel cracked loudly. 

In the silence that followed Barbara thought she heard 
her mother whispering her name. 

Cleve, Cleve ! ” she cried. Be good. Please, 
please.” 

Again he threw himself against the door. It held fast. 

The door-bell sounded. 

“ Who’s that ? ” asked Cleve. 

‘‘ The doctor ! ” she cried, almost hysterical in her 
relief. 

“ Shout out of the window that you don’t want him.” 

But a deep voice in the hall below interposed. “ The 
door was open. Shall I come right up.^ ” 

Yes;, yes, yes 1 ” cried Barbara. 

Cleve Winsor prepared to greet the intruder “ as he de- 
served ” at the top of the stairs, but the physician’s bulky 
frame decided him this time to choose the better part of 
valor in spite of his own superior strategic position. 
Barbara unlocked the hall door. 

The doctor entered and was amazed to see Barbara 
close the door sharply behind him, evidently directly in 
the face of the man he had passed with a nod at the head 
of the stairs. Dr. Fane was an old friend of the family 
and he could not place the handsome young man. 

I heard a racket. It soimded like some one trying 
to break open a door. The young man outside — isn’t 
a burglar, is he ? ” 


BARBARA PICKS A HUSBAND 


263 


Barbara looked up at him with steady eyes. No, he’s 
my husband. I married him about midnight. Then I ran 
away. Don’t — let him come in. It would — kill Mother 
— to see him.” 

“Oh!” said Dr. Fane, and a little later he murmured 
“ Ah ! ” and then he remarked mendaciously, “ I under- 
stand,” and calmly and quickly began to take off his 
gloves. 

Barbara, choking suddenly, pointed to her mother still 
lying on the floor. The doctor knelt down beside her. 

“ I can help you lift her on the couch,” whispered Bar- 
bara. 

He turned his head. “ Thank you, Barbara. I think 
I’d rather not risk it.” 

For a second Barbara thought her own heart had 
stopped beating. 

The doctor bent over Mrs. CoUingwood, speaking not a 
word. Barbara asked a question, tremulously, but he 
indicated with a gesture that he wished quiet. 

Barbara ! ” called Cleve Winsor peremptorily. 

Dr. Fane gave an impatient wave of his hand without 
turning. Barbara ran on tiptoe to the door. 

“-You’ve got to keep quiet,” she whispered sharply. 

“ I won’t keep quiet ! ” Cleve shouted. “ I’m your hus- 
band. I won’t be treated this way.” He rattled the 
door-knob. 

Dr. Fane turned, speaking in a low, calm voice. “ Your 
mother is slowly recovering consciousness. If she should 
be startled now, I’m afraid, Barbara, we won’t be able — 
to keep her with us. Could you convey that to — your 
husband.'^” 

Barbara winced, and swallowed hard. Then, throwing 
back her shoulders, she unlocked the door quickly and 
stepped into the hall. She closed the door behind her. 

For an instant Cleve Winsor was too surprised to speak ; 
and even when he had recovered, he did not utter a word. 


^4 BARBARA PICKS A HUSBAND 

For Barbara, with her open palms against the door, had 
in her eyes a look that made him cower. He edged away 
toward the stairs. 

Barbara Collingwood, who, twelve hours before, had 
been only a bit of fluff and feathers blown by veering 
winds, had become an Angel with a Flaming Sword. 


XXVIII 


W HEN day broke, at six or thereabouts, the house 
on Fifty-seventh Street resembled for all the 
world the palace of the Princess who slept a hundred years. 
For Mrs. Collingwood, breathing regularly, was sleeping 
on her couch; Barbara, in a huddled heap, was sleeping 
outside the door she had so satisfactorily guarded; Cleve 
Winsor, crouching half way down the stairs, had forgot- 
ten his troubles and his desires and was snoring like a lum- 
ber-camp ; and Matilda, stretched on the best satin sofa in 
the drawing-room, was dreaming of everything except the 
day’s work. 

Dr. Fane, making a tour of inspection, smiled, frowned, 
wondered and returned to the bedside of his patient. And 
there, listening to the deep and quiet breathing and watch- 
ing the occasional nervous flutter of the delicate eyelids, 
he too lightly dropped off. 

It was upon this scene of curious enchantment tha-t 
Prince Charming, in the outward form and habiliments of 
Tom Paraway, entered about a quarter after six. The 
door was on the latch. That was Matilda’s fault, for she 
had forgotten to release the lock after her return from the 
scurrying errand for the doctor. Tom, not being able to 
identify his benefactor, blessed fate in general for his good 
luck. 

The hall was dim, for some one had turned out the 
electric light, and the early daylight coming through the 
silk curtain over the front door revealed only outlines. 
Tom heard competitive snoring and thought of drunken 
butlers. But in the Collingwood house were no more but- 
lers. He could testify to that himself. 

265 


^66 


BARBARA PICKS A HUSBAND 


He entered the drawing-room. On the sofa lay a dark 
figure. Could it be that Barbara had crept in here — 

The figure resumed its stentorian snores. No, that was 
not Barbara. 

He hesitated, wondering what under the canopy he was 
to do next. He was the bearer of decidedly important 
tidings. He had assumed that the household would, under 
the circumstances be not only astir but agog. Mrs. Col- 
lingwood was always up and about at six. With Bar- 
bara’s harassing adventure to occupy her mind he had 
rather supposed she would not have been to bed at all. 

He had to see her, for he had something to tell her 
which she would be wanting to know; and her telephone 
was evidently out of order. 

He went to the foot of the stairs. Mrs. Colling- 
wood,” he called softly. 

Mrs. Collingwood did not answer. But an indistinct 
shape half way up the stairs did. 

“ What’s up now.^ ” asked Cleve Winsor heavily. 

‘‘My eye!” ejaculated Tom, surprised but not at all 
disturbed. “See who’s here! Young Lochinvar from 
Minnesota ! ” 

“ What are you talking about ? ” grumbled Cleve 
surlily. 

“You poor cheap skate!” remarked Tom coolly and 
very genially, looking up at him. “ You second-rate imi- 
tation of a Wild Man of Borneo! You dub of an affinity 
expert ! You pitiful, little back-country cut-up ! ” 

“ What do you think you’re doing anyway ” muttered 
the victim of all this eloquence. 

“ I’m waiting for you to come down and hit me,” said 
Tom. “ But I’m sort of afraid you won’t do it. When 
you hit people you like to hit ’em from behind. That has 
its points too.” 

“ Talk all you blame please,” cried Cleve. “ I got the 
girl.” 


BARBARA PICKS A HUSBAND 


267 


‘‘ Yes, you did ! ” 

Cleve tossed his head. Bee and I were married last 
night,” he remarked with airy nonchalance. Tom did not 
miss the fact that he designated Barbara by the nickname 
which hitherto he had been the only man privileged to use. 

Great work! ” remarked Tom. “ You’re quite a hero, 
are you not.^ ” His voice was most good-humored. 

“ Say, young feller,” Cleve cried, “ when do you think 
you’re going to get through trying to say funny things 
about me? ” 

Search me! ” Tom exclaimed. “ My guess is that I’ll 
never get through — not to my dying day. I expect to 
remember some bit of foolishness about you when you and 
I knock at the Pearly Gates and St. Peter tells me please 
to come in and tells you that, since you were so ’straor- 
dinary wicked, you can go to ” 

“ Do you want to fight ? ” growled Cleve. 

“ That’s what I’m waiting for. You’re almighty slow 
in coming to it.” 

“ Well, I can tell you this much,” Cleve sputtered. “ I 
don’t know how you feel about it, but I have fine feelings 
that won’t let me make a row in a lady’s house.” 

Tom had only one answer for that. There was, in fact, 
only one answer. But the curious thing about it was 
that that same answer came simultaneously from both ends 
of the stairs. Tom, at the foot, smiled, and the smile 
became a grin and the grin became a long, joyous, ap- 
parently inexhaustible chuckle; and from the top came a 
soft giggle that ran off into low, but ringing laughter. 

Cleve turned indignantly, only to face a flame of a new 
sort in Barbara’s refreshed and rejuvenated eyes. He 
turned again. Below, he met Tom’s relentless chuckle. 
Between the two he stood speechless. 

Barbara’s hilarity was the first to give way, overcome 
by the sudden realization of certain inexorable facts. 
“ Tom ! ” she cried. There was a note of pain in her voice. 


268 


BARBARA PICKS A HUSBAND 


“ Hello ! ” he called cheerily. Can I see your 
mother? ” 

‘‘ She’s been awfully ill, Tom,” she answered in low 
tones. 

“ Your mother — ill? ” Somehow one did not connect 
illness with so shining a spirit as Mrs. Collingwood’s. 

“ It’s all right. She’s going — to pull through. But 
— I guess — it was a close shave.” 

‘‘ I’ve got something I’d like to tell her.” 

“Can’t you tell me?” There was a wistful, friendly 
note in her voice which Cleve resented. 

“ See here ! ” he cried. “ If that man down there has 
any messages to convey to your mother he’ll convey them 
through your husband. Understand? ” 

“ I happened to telephone Father from the wilds of 
Jersey about two o’clock this morning,” Tom remarked, 
ignoring Cleve Winsor. “ He gave me a clue or two and 
I’ve been having a fine time ever since, following them up.” 

Cleve Winsor’s expression became suddenly coarse. 
“ What are you talking about? ” 

“ I’m talking about Jersey and motoring in the early 
morning and so on,” responded Tom genially. I rather 
like spending the night up.” 

“ You’re damn fresh,” muttered Cleve sullenly, feeling 
evidently that the presence of Barbara demanded a re- 
turn of the spirit militant. “ For two cents I’d thrash 
you.” 

Tom dug into his pockets, drew out a handful of change, 
picked out a pair of pennies and threw them, with a long 
underhand, one at a time, at Cleve’s feet. “ There you 
are. Now’s the time, if ever. You may not get another 
chance. Not with the lady in the gallery. And remem- 
ber, she didn’t see how beautifully you did it night before 
last.” 

Cleve Winsor did not move. He tried to look haughty, 
without much success ; he pulled at his collar ; he stared at 


BARBARA PICKS A HUSBAND ^69 

the ceiling ; he glared at Tom Paraway, waiting patiently 
below. 

“ Tom,” called Barbara softly. “ Let me in on this. 
You’re awfully queer.” 

‘‘ I can be queerer yet. You see if I can’t.” 

He drew another penny from his pocket and tossed it 
after the others ; and after that, a fourth. 

“ What in blazes do you think you’re doing.? ” cried 
Cleve. “ I’m not a slot machine.” 

“ I’m trying to get you to come down and thrash me. 
But, say, old man, my pennies have given out. Here goes 
for a quarter.” He tossed it with a grandiloquent ges- 
ture. ‘‘ Bing ! ” 

Cleve shuffled his feet and muttered violent, unintel- 
ligible things. But he did not budge from his place. 
Barbara watched him and her whilom suitor at the foot of 
the stairs in silent bewilderment as Tom tossed one coin 
after another at Cleve’s feet. The last was a silver dollar. 
It hit the edge of Cleve’s shoe-sole, bounded between the 
supports of the stair-rail and fell with a pleasant tinkle on 
the floor of the hall below. 

“ Now, you white rabbit,” cried Tom with a grimmer 
note in his voice, I’ve given you your chance to show 
what you’re made of, and you’ve taken it and no mistake. 
Now come down from there! ” 

“ You go straight to ,” cried Young Lochinvar. 

“ Oh, no ! ” interrupted Tom. “ That isn’t my destina- 
tion. Heaven is my home. Come down from there I ” 

‘‘ You damn — ” 

“ Come — down I ” Tom commanded. 

Cleve came slowly. The house seemed very silent as he 
reluctantly descended those eight or ten steps. 

“ Oh, Tom ! ” cried Barbara in a despairing wail. 
“ He’s my husband ! ” 

He’s nothing of the sort I ” Tom exclaimed. 

Oh, but he is ! ” she wailed. 


270 


BARBARA PICKS A HUSBAND 


Tom clutched him by the shoulder. “ You cheap, good- 
for-nothing, cowardly, first-class rat ! Don’t worry. I’m 
not going to hurt you. But I advise you to take the next 
train West, and to take one that leaves the Grand Cen- 
tral. There’s a warrant waiting for you in Jersey.” 

“ You’re crazy! ” Cleve sputtered. “ You’re — ” 

“ Your friend Callahan’s in jail already.” 

“ Callahan.'^ ” cried Barbara. Why, he’s the man 
who — ” 

“ Callahan? ” whispered Cleve. 

“ I saw him locked up nicely myself about an hour ago 
— fraud — conspiracy to deceive — white slave act — 
twenty years at least — ” 

“ What are you giving us,” Cleve exclaimed. Didn’t 
he marry us all right? ” 

Tom looked him in the eyes with a curious expression 
between contempt and fury in his own. Then he started 
slowly to ascend the stairs. On the second step he turned. 

Oh, yes. He went through the forms. He did it well 
enough to fool Barbara which was all you thought neces- 
sary.” 

“ Tom ! ” cried Barbara exultantly. “ Tom I ” 

Tom paid no attention to her. “ The trouble was that 
you hadn’t bothered about a license. You preferred to 
bribe Callahan with fifty dollars to go through the motions 
without a license. Callahan’s where he belongs and if I 
see you in two minutes standing where you are standing 
now. I’ll tell the cop, who’s waiting outside — ” 

“ What 1 ” ejaculated Cleve Winsor, diving for his coat. 

“ To take you where you ought to have been long ago. 
That’s all. Young Lochinvar. I’m through. Get out!” 

Cleve Winsor got out, not stopping for farewells. 


XXIX 


B arbara and Tom shook hands at the top of the 
stairs. 

Shaking hands seems a simple ceremony, but there are 
a great many ways of conducting it ; and between this way 
and that way, between the right way and the wrong way, 
between the hollow, stupid way and the way that seems a 
very palpitation of countless utterances too subtle for 
language, hangs all the world of space that lies between 
indifference and love. 

Barbara and Tom shook hands the right way. 

That was all. 

And that is all there is to this story. 


PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OV AMERICA 

271 



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